Accused
by JMK758
Summary: The murder of a Marine Drill Instructor opens a case that hits too close to the Agents. Please Review!
1. Murder in the Hamptons

This is my twentieth NCIS Mystery and the ninth of my Second Season. The list of stories got so extensive I moved it, with summaries, to my profile.  
The usual legal disclaimers apply. I don't own anyone except original Agents and characters.  
This story ties to 'Salarium', 'Nosferatu' and 'Autopsy Atrocities', the second through fourth stories of my current Season.  
Please Review. I live for reviews.  
Rating: T or NCis-17.

Accused  
By JMK758  
Chapter One  
Murder in the Hamptons

At his desk at NCIS Headquarters, Tim McGee keeps his voice as low as possible. The receiver wire of his cell phone is an inch from his lips; the earpiece helps to keep this conversation private while he pretends to use his keyboard. "I just wanted to be sure you're all right, that's all."

/A chuisle, I'm _fine_./ Siobhan O'Mallory's voice is loving rather than chiding. Unlike him, the priest doesn't have to whisper, she's keeping no more secrets from the Church. /I've been settled in for a day. George and Ellen are the only ones who know I didn't spend the past month in Ireland./

Tim had surprised her with a late-night New Year's proposal, one he'd considered too long delayed. After close to two decades, it was all going to work.

Then had come a violent kidnap, days of brutal captivity, assaults and rapes beyond numbering. In the past month the worst of her visible injuries have healed. She'd needed that recovery time, spent in secret seclusion in his apartment, before she was confident to appear in public.

"I miss you already."

x

A glance at the clock shows he needn't endure the separation much longer. It's closing on 1600 and today the team has finished an embezzling case which is now in JAG's lap and they're welcome to it.

The Navy is still reeling from last month's Millennium debacle, the fallout of which he and Shav discussed almost as much as their own hopes and plans. The Commandeering of a Navy ship, and the worst attack on U.S. soil since 9/11, are in the hands of the Pentagon, the politicians and - unfortunately if inevitably - the media. Two Admirals, a Marine General and an Army Colonel have already been indicted. Suspicions and accusations rage throughout the country. With charges of treason and murder, heads are rolling faster than during the French Revolution; but that's not his worry any more.

For the moment he and his team mates are free. So many teams are investigating so many allegations that someone has to draw the mundane assignments. For the moment that's Gibbs' team and Tim can't be happier. He just has to complete the report shining on his monitor, transfer it to Gibbs' computer and then he can slip over to Saint Mary the Virgin Church. He and Shav can go out for dinner at–

/Maniac,/ she says without a break. He can almost see her teasing smile. /I thought you'd be glad to see me gone./

"I never wanted you to leave," he tells her, his lips barely moving.

/A woman sharing your bed for a platonic _month_? You must have been driven half mad./

"It was good preparation for marriage."

/Oh _you_. Wait 'till next month, I'll _show _you what our marriage will be like./

"Can't wait."

/Remember, 'cha robh dithis riamh a' fadadh teine nach do las eatarra'./

He tries to work this one out, but finally has to admit: "Okay, I'm lost."

/'Two never kindled a fire but it lit between them.'/

"Can't wait for that either."

/Pervert./

x

Mid-March is close but there's so much to prepare for. Just a handful of people, most of whom are of NCIS, are aware yet that any preparation is in the works. When Siobhan had insisted upon secrecy until they were ready to reveal their plans, it was her congregation that the priest had been concerned about.

"I'm just glad you're feeling better," he tells her softly.

She'd returned to the Rectory yesterday from a publicly announced sabbatical supposedly spent in Ireland. She _had _left for home and family - and a last minute, unannounced change of mind diverted her to Silver Spring. The month that followed was a period of learning for each of them.

/I'm _fine_,/ she insists. /The brace comes off next week and that's the last of the problems people can see./ Damage to the tendons of her right wrist has kept her immobilized from forearm to fingers, forcing the simplest things to become a challenge.

/Tomorrow I go back to work upstairs./ As Chaplain she spends Tuesdays, though she's missed today, at the Navy Yard. /Unlike you, _I_ don'thave to pass any tests to come back to work./

"You'll be back just in time for your interview."

x

There's a moment of silence. /What interview?/

"'We' magazine? Their 'Women of NCIS' feature? Did you forget?"

/Darn, I did./

"So remember, dress sexy."

/I'll _wear _my uniform,/ she refers to her black slacks, pale blue back-button shirt and two inch high wrap-around white collar. /They can take me as they find me./

"That's sexy."

Another moment of silence.

/We really need to talk./

"Pencil me in for a few hours on your couch."

/I'm serious, the last thing I want is more reporters. I hid out for a month to get _away _from them./

x

First had been this summer's drama at St. Mary's, the torture/rape murders of two members of St. Mary the Virgin's congregation, following hard on the heels of which was her appointment as NCIS' first woman Chaplain. Then her apartment had been bombed in an attempt to kill Abby, who had sought sanctuary there. The explosion had removed the entire top of the building and left the rest uninhabitable. Then, fortunately unknown to reporters, she had been one of several women targeted for extortion based on some embarrassing photographs from her unrestrained youth. The outrageous litany had climaxed in the devastation Charlie Morley had inflicted upon her.

As a result of the journalistic onslaught that followed each calamity, she'd felt as though reporters had been camping out under her bed. She'd fled to Ireland as much to get away from them as to recover from the horrible series of assaults.

The media certainly hadn't known, and Rev. George Donaldson and Church Secretary Ellen Meyer weren't going to reveal to anyone, that she hadn't left the country. The cover story had been so good that for a few hours it'd even taken in _Gibbs_.

x

The month hadn't been entirely smooth, however. Though while in his company, in his bed, she'd noticed she no longer tossed about in her sleep, she still could not adjust easily to sharing that bed with a man, not even Timmy.

She'd insisted he not use his sleeping bag, however, and forced herself to shove aside her discomfort. She'd told him she'd focused instead on the many times when, in their teens, they'd very willingly shared beds for far more than sleep.

But over this past month he'd been an utter gentleman, at what personal cost to himself she could only imagine.

She didn't want to add to his burden by implying she'd be interested in more than cuddling and comfort; they both knew better.

That decision had been very dramatically driven home to them on their second night together. She'd awoken in the blackness of the closed bedroom feeling his weight draped across her. In that disoriented instant she wasn't in her own bedroom in the Rectory, she was back in that basement dungeon, still being brutalized, still being raped.

Her first screech had catapulted Timmy off the bed to a crash upon the hardwood floor. It took him quite some time, even with the light on, to quiet her screams.

She'd gone from panic to hysteria, clinging to him, weeping like a baby. It'd taken her a very long time to calm down.

Not long after, there had been knocking on the apartment door. The police had arrived.

A half hour of explanations, assurances and recovery and they were again alone, but never did make it back to sleep.

It had also been the last time they'd gone to bed with the lights off.

x

"I'm just relieved, that's all," he tells her, serious again.

/I'm _fine_,/ she insists. /I don't even have to wear makeup unless I _want _to. Even Duckypronounced me fit, and he's a demanding healer./

"His patients rarely argue with him."

/And I _will _be ready for the seventeenth,/ she assures him firmly. /We'll make it a day worthy of parades, just you wait./

"I can't."

/Tell you the truth, I can't wait ei–/

"Gibbs."

/Huh?/

He drops his whisper further. "Have to go. Now. He just came out of the Director's office, crossing the platform and he doesn't look happy."

/Adhraim thú./

"I adore you too."

He pushes the disconnect, pulls the wire from his ear and lets it fall into his lap. He's pretending to complete the finished embezzlement report on his monitor before the supervisor reaches the stairs.

Gibbs comes about at the base of the stairs and enters the enclave. "Grab your gear, we've got a dead DI."

McGee's heart falls into his lap with the phone wire. A blessed three minutes to go and he would've been on the elevator.

"What's Mollvaney giving it to us for?" Tony DiNozzo protests, annoyed and not caring who knows it. "It's four o'clock."

"Didn't come from Dispatch. We inherited this one from Metro."

x

Nearly every team in Washington has been dealing with the fallout from the 'Millennium Debacle', but for the moment they're excluded from inquiring into a disaster of almost mythic proportions. However, as the cases grow with appalling rapidity DiNozzo knows they may well be drawn back in and every time quitting time approaches he holds his breath. Today he seems to have done so for the wrong case.

He wants to protest that this should still be passed along, but there is no one left to give it to. He sees Ziva David, across the bullpen, is no more pleased by the aborting of their plans. Self-preservation, however, prevents him from saying anything more. He knows of only one person in Metro Homicide who would call Gibbs directly; Detective Lieutenant Jeffrey Carpenter.

"Call Ducky," Gibbs orders, "get him on the road."

"I already am," Michelle Palmer, at the desk beyond McGee's, replies, her hand covering her phone's mouthpiece. At Gibbs' look, she explains, "I had to tell him why dinner's going to be late."

"Giving Ducky some home cooking?"

"No, sir," she replies with a tiny smile. "Where should I have them meet us?"

"Dupont Circle, Nineteenth Street Northwest between M and N; the Hampton Arms."

She passes on the information, quietly finishing with: "I'll make it up with an extra special dessert. See you there. Bye." She kisses the receiver.

"Now I really hope it's not Ducky," DiNozzo quips.

Preparations made, the team heads for the elevator.

As the doors close, Gibbs asks McGee, "You say 'hi' to O'Mallory for me?"

xxx

Gibbs' blue Charger leads the Major Case Response and ME trucks to the front of the Hampton Arms, a fifteen story apartment building fronted by a crowd of MPDC cruisers. The building and its adjacent parking lot take up half the block. The police Medical Examiner's van is already pulling out; Jimmy Palmer maneuvers NCIS' counterpart into the space just vacated and Tony halts the MCRT truck beside it, double parked so the two groups can converse as they prepare their supplies.

"I'm sorry to miss Tom," Ducky says as he leaves the blue and white truck in his Assistant's care to join the agents and obtain some insight on the case. "I've been trying to get together with him all week."

"Shop talk, Duck?" Gibbs asks as he opens the back of the MCR truck. The agents gather their supplies as Jimmy, with Michelle's aid, pulls out the gurney and other equipment from the truck at the curb. Gibbs will educate him later on the protocol he expects; Palmer should have left the only vacant parking space for the MCRT vehicle.

"Not really, he owes me sixty-two dollars from last week's bridge game."

"In that case, he saw you coming."

"I shall make him regret it next time."

Gibbs can pick up a measure of annoyance in the burr; Scotland is not far from Ducky's voice.

"What about you, Palmer?" Tony DiNozzo baits the man as he slings bags out of the back of the ME truck onto the gurney. "You get into the weekly ghoul games?"

"No," Michelle answers faster than her husband can, "he knows what I'll do with Ziva's genital cuffs if he tries."

Though her declaration does halt all activity for a moment, no one dares to pursue this.

x

The seven investigators walk through glass doors into a lobby that's much wider than deep. To their left is a security desk at which stands an officer in a black uniform. When he sees five men and women dressed in black badge coats and identifying caps, another pair in coveralls with stitched 'Medical Examiner' identifications, the shorter man wearing an anachronistic fishing cap, he doesn't bother to reach for the sign-in book. He points to the elevators to his left. "You want the ninth floor. Right as you get off, then left down the hall, Apartment F."

The group waves thanks; the investigators take the right car upward, Ducky and Jimmy the left. The gurney takes up most of the space. On nine, they find the directions superfluous. A uniformed MPDC officer stands opposite the car, another posted to their right where he can look down the long corridor before him. The hall in which the elevator deposited them is the base of a U; two corridors extend the length of the building.

When they reach the intersection and turn, they're looking down a double row of four doors, the second on their left the center of activity. Half a dozen uniformed officers give hint of the numbers they'll find within.

The hall is painted a faded off-white but the apartment doors they pass are deep brown which matches the carpeting. Ducky cannot think of a more depressing shade, and from an analytical point of view, a less helpful one.

Apartment F contains four people, fewer than they'd expected. Seated on the living room couch is a man who appears, for all they can see of him, to be in his late thirties. They can't see his face; he weeps into bloody hands. His disheveled clothes are drenched, and blood stains him from gory hands to knees. The aroma of death is a heavy weight in the stagnant air.

A uniformed officer stands nearby the couch, notepad in his hand, as though waiting for some lucid words. There are two non-uniformed men, one seated on the couch beside the weeping man, notebook in hand, but it's the other who catches Gibbs' attention. His dry brown hair has suffered in the winter wind, his uncombed mane at odds with the crisp trench-coat.

x

Gibbs would greet his old friend with 'what've you got, Carp?', but the palpable cloud of grief that fills the apartment smothers any inclination to humor. In turn, Detective Lieutenant Jeffery Carpenter's greeting is a silent tilt of the head to a room in line from the front door.

The room Carpenter indicates is the bathroom. A quick look at the apartment's layout shows it to be four-square, a kitchen and bedroom comprising the right corners. The bathroom encroaches upon the kitchen's space to allow for the larger bedroom.

In the bathroom is a glass doored shower-tub set against the far wall; the glass lies in scores of shards on the tiled floor. A woman's body, nude and bloody, lies on its left side, legs bent, feet touching the tub. Blood is smeared on the tiles, the agents have seen that much of it is on the crying man outside. Though the room is spacious, Gibbs signals all but Ducky and Jimmy to remain in the living room to gather information. Carpenter closes the door so their words won't be heard.

"Staff Sergeant Wendy Langley, thirty six," he says over the still wet body. "When we found out she was a Drill Instructor back three weeks from a tour in Afghanistan, I pulled my people out and sent up the Gibbsignal."

Gibbs doesn't need to ask how she died, grateful it hadn't been a slip and fall through the glass door. He can think of few ironies worse than a Marine who survived combat, improvised explosive devices, terrorists and insurgents half a world away only to fall and bleed to death outside her own shower.

There's a neat hole a little more than a quarter inch wide in the white tile of the shower wall, another in the woman's right side. The significant thing about the hole in the tiled wall is that it shows the bullet burst outward rather than striking Langley and going in. Tiny fragments of wall and tile have rained into the tub and been carried toward the catch-screen over the drain. Gibbs can see small grit adhered by blood to the woman's side surrounding the wound.

There's a corresponding hole four feet high in the now closed wooden door. Carpenter points out the obvious trajectory. "The round came through the wall, her, door, and buried itself two-thirds of the way crosswise into a box of vinyl 33 rpms in the living room."

"A lot of firepower." Gibbs looks at the hole, impressed. He's not sure yet which of the many types of rifles they'll be looking for, but it will be a powerful one. He gets as close to the shower wall as he can without disturbing Ducky and Jimmy as they crouch beside the still woman. "Any idea what our shooter was aiming at?"

"Not yet, LeeJay. I sent an officer downstairs to the Management office for a key before we determined she was one of yours. I've got it. I wanted to do this together."

x

Ducky looks up to them. "The bullet entered her right side, as you see, between her sixth and seventh ribs, would have penetrated both lungs, hit or missed the heart; I can tell you more when I examine the exit wound under her."

"Fatal?" A layman might consider the question odd, but Gibbs wants to know if the glass both under and beside the body, the source of her many cuts, could have influenced her fate. There's no glass visible on top of her body, just around her, though Gibbs is sure Abby will be able to find plenty of smaller shards in the roadmap of wounds, mixed in with the blood.

Gibbs can judge from the blood smeared over the wet floor that the husband, far from caring about preserving forensic evidence, had been cradling his wife's body. Was she still alive at that point? Something to be determined later. From what they'd seen outside, the husband had been kneeling in the pool of blood, possibly pulled her further out of the tub from where he'd found her. That covers - maybe - the blood on him down to his knees, his clothes still soaked from the possibly still running water. The position of her legs supports this reconstruction, but Gibbs will reach no conclusion now. He'll know more and better later.

"Again, I shall have to let you know," Ducky tells him, "though this much broken glass didn't help her."

x

"I thought bathroom glass wasn't supposed to shatter like this," Jimmy says.

"Quite right. Due to many unfortunate accidents decades ago, most showers that still employ sliding glass doors are equipped, or were replaced long ago, with safety glass. I shall not try to speculate as to why this was not the case or if it was done with substandard materials. This much blood, however, does indicate that the wound was not immediately fatal. I'd say she could have survived for a brief period before succumbing. I shall give you the exact cause and manner of death as soon as I can."

"How long has she been dead?" Gibbs observes that not only does water cover the floor but a great deal of the pooled and smeared blood is still red and wet. Only some of the smaller spots have begun to show signs of either drying or separating into serum.

"Once again, a preliminary estimate is less than two hours. I shall not be more specific than that at this point. This room is quite humid. Since the young lady had been wet and presumably the water was hot - or at least warm - then perhaps cooled rapidly - that will all affect the determination of the actual Time of Death. I will not say more definitely until I know for certain." He indicates the liver thermometer he'd just inserted through her side.

x

Gibbs turns to Carpenter, but doesn't have to ask.

"The husband, John Langley, came home and found her, he thinks, about three fifteen or twenty. 911 got the call at three twenty three. He said he opened the front door, could see the light shining through the hole in the door into the darkened living room, came in and found this."

"Was the shower still running?"

"He says he turned it off after he called us."

Gibbs can see that the valve handle, though dripped on by the shower, has visible blood on it. There'd likely been a spray of blood in both directions; the running water dispersed most of it from the wall. Reconstructing the glass fragments will be more telling.

"When the first unit got here," Carpenter continues, "the front door was closed but not locked, he was in here with her, still holding the body and crying."

"Then let's see what's back of that wall." He opens the door, leads the way, gets partway through the living room when John Langley leaps from the couch, blocks his path, his tear-lined face masked with his wife's blood.

"You, NCIS, who killed my wife? _Who killed Wendy_?"

"I'm going to find out," Gibbs promises before the uniformed officer coaxes the broken man back to his seat. It's obvious that Langley had been talking to the other plain clothes detective seated on the couch. He probably never thought to wash off the blood, the police won't suggest it. Photos, always photos to be taken, documenting everything; grief and pain preserved forever.

DiNozzo is by the stereo at the right wall, photographing the box containing the vinyl records that had stopped the bullet. Ziva and Michelle examine the room, McGee is by the couch, pad in hand, waiting as the uniformed officer returns the distraught man to the interview.

Gibbs will leave them to it, though he'll be certain McGee takes testimony again before collecting what Metro has. "DiNozzo, you're with us."

"On your six, boss," he replies crisply, setting the sketch pad he'd been prepared to use in the bathroom upon an equipment satchel and following them out.

x

In the hall, Gibbs can't shake the grim miasma that has filled the scene. Walking up the corridor, they pass the uniformed officers and turn right across the long walkway past the guarded elevators and then right again down the corresponding walkway. There they see a woman insert her key into the lock of apartment J.

Gibbs is annoyed to see that this tenant had not been challenged. It had already been determined the round had come from that apartment, and he doesn't need to so much as glance at Carpenter beside him to know the man's thoughts.

"Excuse me," Gibbs calls out to the woman, short enough to be a girl, before she can turn the key. He can see little of her, only that she is petite, not much more than five feet tall. Her long blue coat reaches halfway down her calves; long straight blonde hair pokes out from under a large matching hat. "May we have a word with you?"

She turns and her face alights in joy. Despite her height, this is no girl. "Agent _Gibbs_, _DiNozzo_, _hi_! Detective Carpenter! _Wow_!" Samantha Sky's delight fills the hall.

x

She walks quickly to the surprised men and hugs each. DiNozzo is the only one who can let his pleasure at this enthusiastic greeting mask his surprise. Samantha Sky is more of a hugger than Abby.

Gibbs glares at DiNozzo over the lovely young woman's head, the look intended to say he's enjoying the hug a bit too much.

"It's so great to _see _you!" Sammy exclaims when she pulls back from DiNozzo. "I didn't know you were coming. This is _wonderful_!"

The petite woman is the only person Gibbs knows who, when she's excited, speaks the language of emphatics. It often takes some getting used to, as does her uber-jubilant manner. "You live here?" Gibbs doesn't like coincidence and likes even less that disconcertion at seeing Sammy Sky again has made him fall back on so 'probie' a question. Her key still in the lock behind her would have alerted even DiNozzo.

The college girl - sorry, medical school student - had worked for Ducky months ago as an Apprentice Medical Examiner when Jimmy Palmer had been laid up following his having been shot in the incident with the winged women. She'd stayed on when the Palmers got married and went to Hawaii on their honeymoon.

At that time he'd tolerated her boundless enthusiasm as something out of his control and had counted the hours until the Palmers' return. He'd avoided her as much as possible, considering her too consistently and staggeringly happy for anyone's good, and had never cared to ask the ebullient young woman where she lived.

x

"Yeppers, this is me. But _wait_! If you're not here to see _me_ - after all why would _you_ come?" she asks Carpenter, not pausing for breath, "then you're on a case? Say, if you're here, is _Ducky _here? I'd so _love _to see him again. If you're on a case, can _I_ help? I'm not doing anything and I'd so _love _a chance to work with Ducky again, even for a little while. _May_ I? Not that I didn't see him just New Year's but I can't get _enough_ of him. _Please_ tell me he's here."

"He's here," DiNozzo obliges, earning another glare from Gibbs. This isn't a social call. "Sorry, boss, but–"

"But it's so great to _see _you again!" Sky exclaims without a perceptible break. "I've had a really _shitty_ day, I can't _tell _you how much it rots, but seeing you guys just makes–"

"Miss Sky." Sammy Sky is too happy as a rule, and Gibbs hadn't forgotten how the effervescent young woman gets when she's excited; he just hadn't expected to have to deal with it again. Dealing with the medical student when she's ecstatic _and _excited is akin to receiving a thorough beating with a happiness club.

"Come on, '_Chicky_', remember? You're the _only_ one I _ever_ let call me that; well, except for Ducky and he doesn't so really you're the only one. Not a lot of people would understand, but that day in the hills above Compton–"

"Miss _Sky_!" Gibbs commanding tone breaks through her ecstatic enthusiasm.

Her pale blue eyes widen in surprise. She's actually halted in her deluge of ecstasy. "What?"

"May we see your apartment?"

Her delight is back in full force. "Well, _sure_! Of course, come on _in_." She returns to the door with them, but then halts. "On second thought, no." She turns back to them, no longer merry, the image of contrition. "No, I'd _love _to have you, you see, but this isn't a good day. I've been having some problems, you see, and I've been ... Maybe another time? I'll cook you all a _marvelous _dinner! We can–"

"Miss Sky, I'd really like you to let us in."

His serious tone breaks through her enthusiasm. "Why?"

"Because I asked nicely." Without a warrant they can't compel her, he must rely on her extremely outgoing nature. He can't recall being grateful for it until now.

"Well, sure, I guess so." Surprise gives way again to bright enthusiasm. "But I can't guarantee the reception you'll get." She turns to and unlocks the door. "_Karen_ and I had a - well, I'm kinda mad at her if you can believe _that_. This really _isn't_ a good day," she pushes the door open. "Don't say I didn't warn–"

She halts, falls a step back and her shrill shriek slices through the hall.


	2. Huston

Chapter Two  
Huston

Samantha Sky stands staring into her apartment, gasping, her chest heaving in her panic. Her hands covering her mouth can't contain a second scream as half the doors in the corridor open.

The uniformed MPDC officer covering the elevators runs down the hall in response to the screams. He slows to a halt at Lieutenant Carpenter's upraised hand, remains a few feet away, nearby but not crowding them.

DiNozzo, his gold badge already in hand, turns to take in the startled residents of four of the remaining seven apartments lining both sides of the corridor. "Federal Agents, everything's under control. Go back inside please."

Samantha would run into the room, but both Gibbs and Lt. Carpenter restrain her by firm grips on her arms. She's too devastated to fight them, her trembling so violent she can barely keep her feet as she pants wildly. Though dead bodies are not unusual for the would-be Medical Examiner, the corpse on her living room floor certainly is.

"Karen," she manages to gasp, "she's _dead_!"

Gibbs attributes this last to shock. She couldn't mistake the obvious, the still body upon the floor covered by and laying in a pool of blood. The forest green living room carpet is saturated about the woman's body but the blood is smeared. It tells them that the brunette's death had been neither immediate nor merciful.

Samantha breaks, sobbing brokenly, her confused efforts to go to her friend are aborted and resumed over and over. Gibbs concludes, as he and Carpenter pull her aside from the door and DiNozzo enters the room, that ingrained Crime-Scene Protocol lessons war with distress, but the inner conflicts make the shattered young woman easy to handle.

Leaving her to Carpenter, Gibbs pulls out his cell phone and steps away from the crying woman. The speed-dial connection takes just a moment. "Duck?"

/May I conclude, Jethro, from the volume of the screams filtering through this wall and from around the corridor, that we have another unpleasant surprise?/

"No. Two. You'll see when you get here."

/I trust I shall be able to find you./

x

Closing the phone, Ducky rises. "Take over, Mr. Palmer. It appears that bad news comes in pairs."

"No problem, doctor," Jimmy glances up to where his wife is taking photos of the bullet hole in the shower wall. "The Palmers have things well in hand."

"Yes, that is what I meant," he quips, earning a sweet/sour smile from Michelle.

x

Exiting the apartment, it's not difficult to find his destination. Even if the corresponding apartment were not self-evident, he has only to follow the sound of weeping, the loud and fervant denials of fate.

Turning the second corner, he sees Detective Carpenter trying, with evident discomfort, to console a young woman two-thirds his size. A uniformed police officer stands a few feet away. All Ducky can distinguish of the young woman beyond blue knitted hat and long coat is straight, pale blonde hair that reaches down her back.

Carpenter is not normally comforting, but as his only other option is to push the sobbing girl away, he apparently endures it as well as he can; not at all. When Ducky reaches them, nodding to the officer in passing, Carpenter looks up to him. "Ducky, could you –?"

He gets no further. On hearing the name the slight young woman turns.

"Oh _Ducky_!"

He's astonished when Sammy Sky, his former and temporary assistant, throws her arms around him and buries her face in his shirt, sobbing even more piteously.

x

"There, my dear," he says, patting her back when enough of the surprise has left him and he can think of something to say. Rarely has anyone rendered speechless but, he reflects with chagrin, if anyone has ever managed to do so with any consistency, it's his former apprentice.

"She's _dead_!"

"Yes." More than the fact that she has stated the obvious, his surprise is in how she says it. She has always been the happiest person he'd ever met; her capacity for ecstasy over life itself has never been less than phenomenal. For him to find her in such a reversal is astounding.

He gives her what time she needs, not pressing her, while at the same time reflecting upon his own brush with fate.

x

Eventually she manages to push away, to wipe her eyes so she can look up at him. Her forced smile is a wan shadow of the real thing. "It's good to see you, Ducky."

"My sentiments exactly, though I could wish for far less tragic circumstances."

"Me too." She pats his arm. "You look good."

"You always could flatter an old man." He looks to the door, not yet having seen the body beyond the intervening wall. "Who is she?"

Sammy's smile is a little less forced. "That's something I like about you, Ducky," she says, brushing back her hair behind her right ear and wiping her eyes of more tears. He reaches into his pocket, hands her a handkerchief. "Anyone else would've said 'was'." She dries the lingering tears from her eyes. "My roommate, Karen Huston." She pronounces it 'Houston'.

"Ah yes, I recall now. She is also a medical student at George Washington University."

Her reaction to this isn't grief or loss, but anger. However, it's not the anger of grief he'd expect. It's bitter, cold. "Yes, she _was_."

x

Ducky looks down at her, curious. The tone in his former apprentice's voice isn't just anger; it has the bitterness of hate. "Your relationship with the young lady was not the best?"

Now the pale blue eyes that turn up to him are suspicious, guarded; two words he'd never before associated with his perky young friend. "What makes you say that?"

"Your tone. In all your mentions of her this fall, you seemed on such good relations with–"

"_Nothing_," she snaps, turns away. Her tone is no longer angry but freighted with grievous, longing appeal. "Ducky, _please _don't do your psychological autopsies on me, I've just lost my best– my roommate."

"Of course, my dear, I _am _sorry. Wherever are my manners?" But her catch, her self-editing, speaks volumes to him.

When she turns, anger and grief are both washed away. "No, I forgive you. My mind's screwed up, that's all."

"Of course." He's often amazed at her resiliency, this time no less so. He can't remember many instances when she'd been angry for even this long.

And though her smile is still forced, she's evidently fighting grief and, at least on the surface, managing to win.

x

Before Ducky can extricate himself from Sammy so he may examine her friend's corpse, Ziva is beside them, her manner displaying no surprise.

"Sammy?"

"Hi, Ziva!" she exclaims, her light as bright as ever. In a moment she seems to remember, for the wattage diminishes again. "I guess you're here for a statement," she says flatly.

"If you like," Ziva indicates the exit door at the corridor's end, "we can go down the hall."

Sammy sighs, "I guess so."

"I am sorry for your loss."

x

To Ducky, the women have always been a study in contrasts. Tall and short – _petite_ – dark and pale blonde, reserved and bubbly, cautious and unrestrained; they have also never seemed to be on the best of terms. He supposes this is due to Agent DiNozzo's sentiments toward the young woman during her near month's tenure at NCIS. At any rate, he wishes them good luck with one another.

He has a second body to inspect.

As he enters the apartment, he notices his blue shirt is darkened by the marks of Sammy's tears.

x

Karen Huston lies on her back, three feet in from the arc of the door. Her wound is almost hidden in the wash of coagulated blood that covers her black tee shirt. Blood, already dry and darkened, smears her mouth and neck and has flowed down both cheeks to the floor. There's misty spatter, tiny particles of expirated blood all about her head and pale face, the marks dotting her like a severe case of measles. The spray extends some eighteen inches before fading more than two feet away. Huston's death, like the other victim's in the next apartment, had been neither immediate nor merciful.

All the blood has separated into serum or clotted and dried. He puts Huston's death at about two hours ago, not surprisingly the same time as Wendy Langley's, though high humidity had kept hers moist longer. He'll reserve more detail after closer examination.

Looking back, Ducky checks the door and frame just before Carpenter pushes the barrier closed with a gloved finger. The uniformed officer they'd first seen at the elevator has taken a post outside this second scene.

The brief glance before the door shut was enough for Ducky to see there's no damage to door or frame. There's a spray of blood on the thin edge of the door.

Huston, apparently, had opened the door and the impact of a bullet powerful enough to have wrought such devastation in the next apartment had knocked her several feet backward.

x

He doesn't intend to draw any conclusions, however. The one he has drawn, unofficial and private though it is, can already be wrong on four important points, and that from a too brief observation.

All the details will come together once the evidence is in, not before. Now all he has is a double tragedy and a need for Mr. Palmer to fetch the second gurney. He squats down at the edge of the stain that surrounds the woman, balanced on the balls of his feet, notes even the blood at the wound itself has dried.

"What caused you to come to such a grizzly end, my dear?" The look upon the brunette's face is blank, peaceful, open eyes stare upward at nothing. Had she died in the instant of being shot, there might be surprise or pain imprinted there, but Huston had evidently lived for a time, perhaps more than a minute to judge by the volume of flow and sprayed blood, long enough for her arms to have smeared some of the pooling blood on either side of her.

Blowback blood has sprayed the wall on either side of the door but the inner side of the door is clear. The droplets on the walls, particularly the right one, are tiny, indicating high velocity spatter imparted almost straight on. The outer side of the brown door will, of course, be examined, as will the brown carpeting in the hall. Though it will be easy to find and identify the blood, Ducky can't choose a more unfortunate shade of color for masking the marks.

x

The room beyond the body has far more spatter visible on almost every surface; even the far wall is dotted. High velocity indeed. The combination of pressure and a bullet powerful enough to rip through body, closed bathroom door that Gibbs is just now opening, wall, two sets of ceramic tile, another body, door and then bury itself deep across the lengths of a set of boxed vinyl LPs had been formidable. He'll rely on Gibbs and his team's observations to tell him how formidable.

x

The hole in Karen Huston's shirt is smaller than the bullet, the shirt having been minutely stretched when punctured, and the material had then returned to its normal state. He'll see, in a few minutes, the size of the exit wound. That size, coupled with the volume of blood surrounding her and soaked into the forest green carpet, will give him a better indication of how long she'd lived. For now, a hypothesis of one to two minutes is sufficient.

Crouching beside the still woman he can see, mingled with the blood, indications of burning about the wound, tattooing of powder detectable to his trained eyes. A layman might miss them, there's so much blood absorbed into the black material, but he has seen this too many times to miss the telltale signs. Abby will tell the details, he judges the shot to have come from one to four feet away.

But Abby's purview is bloodstains and burning and unburnt powder, his is the body beneath them.

x

Taking from his bag a spare digital thermometer set, he removes the parts from the plastic and sets the smaller thermometer outside the dried pool, then lifts the edge of the woman's shirt enough to bare the skin above her hip. "I'm sorry about this, my dear," he tells the apprentice ME, sorry he'd never met her, sorry her career had been so ignominiously cut short, "but it must be done." He presses the sharp point into her flesh, punctures it and inserts the long silver rod deep within her. "Yes, I know it hurts, but I expect the pain of being shot was considerably wor–."

Sensing a presence nearby, he looks up to see Carpenter staring at him. "I always converse with my patients; it helps alleviate the discomfort they must feel."

"Must be catchy, our own ME has gotten pretty chatty lately."

"Really?" He's not surprised, suspecting he knows which ME he seems to have had influence upon.

"Really."

"Good."

"You mean creepy."

Ducky just shrugs, gives the man an affable smile that tries not to boast of superiority and returns to his conversation.

x

Gibbs, in the bathroom, looks back to the living room, mentally draws a line from front door to the small round hole in the tiled wall of this shower. String will be stretched to draw an accurate trajectory for the bullet. To go through so many obstacles, he hadn't needed Carp to tell him it was a full metal jacket round.

As it is, he considers that they're lucky for the slight deviation imparted to the bullet's course by so many impacts. Had the bullet not lost enough velocity to drop to the level of the record case in the Langley living room, they could well have had to deal with a third apartment, 9B opposite F.

And possibly, Lord help them, another victim.

As it is, the use of so powerful a weapon is unconscionable overkill, but it also lends itself to advantages they can exploit. For one thing, a rifle shot is very loud; it would have been deafening in the close confines of an apartment building hallway. They won't lack for ear-witnesses to this explosive report.

Depending upon how long ago the shooting was, whoever fired that gun would have suffered an extended period of near deafness unless he or she were wearing earplugs. Finding those supposed plugs will be a priority he'll hand to his team.

He walks out to the living room and the bloody corpse. The room is sprayed with blood, it's impossible to avoid stepping on drops, though he, DiNozzo, Carpenter and Ducky must be as careful as possible when they must step anywhere.

x

"Quite a spatter," Gibbs observes to Carpenter and DiNozzo, but it's Ducky who responds.

"Yes, in high velocity impacts like this you'll get extensive spray, mostly from her back but considerable forward blowback discharge as well."

"What does it tell you?"

"Well, as you see, the expirated blood which she breathed or coughed up," he points out the fine mist and thicker discharge about her face and head, "indicates extensive damage to her lung, or we'd have more fine spray than this. I'd say she lived for some short time. I would not be surprised if exsanguination were the Cause of Death, the gunshot the Manner."

"How high up is the wound?" Carpenter asks.

"I shall have to take measurements, but the bullet entered the right side of her chest, seems to have penetrated at least the lower lobe of her lung and to have exited at about the same level."

"How tall is Sky?"

Ducky is loathe to answer, annoyed at the conclusion the detective is reaching for. "Five foot two."

"Well, as I eyeball it, shoulder height to–"

"Kindly do not 'eyeball' _anything_, detective. When I am done with my analysis, I shall give you a report."

"Nope." At the refusal, Ducky is about to protest but Carpenter is ready for him. "NCIS can have Langley and the secondary crime scene. I'm keeping this one and _my _ME will forward _you _a report."

Ducky rises to his feet. "Now wait just a minute–"

"Jurisdiction, pal. I gave you the Marine, I'm keeping the medical student. You can transport them, seeing how your truck's here, but I'll have a city ME pick her up."

Ducky must give in, but he doesn't try to do it graciously. "Very well. Which ME are you going to use?"

"Jordan Hampton."

Ducky had actually hoped the man would say Tom Hubbard would take this case, as he'd been on the scene at first, but this is much better than collecting sixty-two dollars. Not only won't the consultation be encumbered in scarlet ribbon and turf wars as he'd supposed it would've been, but it will be quite cordial indeed. "Yes, I believe I've met her."

xx

Ziva has backed Sammy into a corner edged by the emergency staircase at the end of the hall, taking full advantage of her height over the outmatched girl. "Tell me about Huston." She'd memorized all the names of the 9th floor tenants in the moments while they'd waited for the elevator. She'd seen 'Sky/Huston' beside the button but won't admit to anyone she'd made no connection to Ducky's former assistant.

"It's not huss," Sammy says bitterly, "it's _hugh_-ston, or at least it _was_." The bitterness in her tone is spiced with anger and something tangier. To Ziva, it tastes of hate. "We're roommates. We've been sharing this apartment since halfway through first year med at GWU."

"Expensive living here?"

"We manage. Might be tougher now, but I'll manage."

x

She won't admit to this bitch that she won't manage eighteen hundred a month well or for long. Of all the people she'd met at NCIS, this is the only woman she never got on with, primarily because of David's jealousy over Agent DiNozzo's attentions.

"You did not like her," Ziva asserts.

Sammy's attempt to hold a forced smile dies. "What the hell do you say that for?"

"The timbre of your voice, the words you use; the fact that your eyes go down and to the left every time you speak of your friendship–"

This time the blonde's eyes fix hers in an unblinking stare. "Karen and I were _friends_."

"It is interesting that you use the present tense to define your living arrangements and the past to relate information about your relationship."

"Get the hell away from me." Sammy tries to shove past her, but she's unable to budge the taller woman. "I just lost my fr– my roommate and you have the nerve to say I didn't _like _her?"

"I am not saying it, you are."

"Fuck _you_." She tries again to get past; Ziva pushes her back into the corner. "All right, you want it? Yeah, Karen and I are going through a rough patch but it'll work out–"

"She is dead."

Sammy glares up at her, and Ziva's ready for the fist that comes up toward her face. A quick shift to the side, the awkward punch misses by inches.

Ziva responds much more effectively, the immediacy of the repost making it look automatic and not satisfyingly overdue. Six inches her fist travels into Sky's diaphragm and the young woman is on her knees gasping for breath. After several frustrating months of DiNozzo's over-obvious attention, it feels good, and to do so fighting off an attack is more satisfying. "You do not know the first thing about fighting."

When she can, Sky casts up a searing glare through the curtain of her straight blonde hair. "I'm learning fast."

"Not rapidly enough, it seems. Now, about your relationship with Karen '_Hugh_-ston'."

Samantha brushes her hair away, continues to glare up at Ziva, barely recovering her breath. "Are you ... arresting me?"

"Have you done anything that will require me to arrest you?"

"_No_. And I know ... a railroad ... when I have to ... ride it. I'm not answering ... another question ... without a _lawyer_." She forces herself back up to her feet, flings her hair out of her way, but she must still look up into Ziva's eyes. "So leave me the hell alone!"

This time she does shove past.


	3. Mercurial

Chapter Three  
Mercurial

When Ziva returns to Apartment 9J, the first thing Gibbs wants to know is "Where's Sky?"

"She lawyered out."

"Lawyered up," DiNozzo corrects, large pad in hand, pausing in his sketching of the scene.

Since Gibbs, Ducky and Detective Lieutenant Carpenter are here surrounding Karen Huston's body, Ziva will let her glare say the words. 'If you are still counting on your luck tonight, you will not correct me.'

"Up, out, I did not have enough to hold her so she went to the elevator."

Gibbs is before her, his voice low and deadly. "_Tell_ me you didn't let a material witness walk out on you."

"Please give me credit for more sense. I called McGee, he intercepted her before she could board the elevator. When I looked, she was too happy about the reunion to be in a hurry to leave. He is not mentioning _Hugh_-ston's murder."

"So?"

"So as long as he does not, she will doubtless continue to talk to him. She does not want to talk to the police without a lawyer, and in her eyes I am now 'the police'."

Detective Jeff Carpenter barks a humorless laugh. "Unfortunately, not wanting to talk to the police isn't a felony. If it were, most of the world would be behind bars."

"At least most of D.C."

He nods, granting the point. "I'm going to talk to her now."

"No," Gibbs counters, "I want Ducky to take her. She worked for him. He's got the best chance of opening her up."

Carpenter doesn't like it, he'd throw that plan out if it didn't make some sense. "Fine, just be sure she stays in town," he points to Huston's wound, "because unless you've found something, all _I _have on her is being short."

Ziva steps up. "That and the fact that she is taking her friend - sorry, her 'roommate's' - death far too easily. Five minutes of tears she turns off is not grief, so far as I am concerned."

Ducky stands up from beside Huston's body, angry. "You of all people should understand–"

"What I _understand _is that she–"

"HEY!" Gibbs' sharp voice silences the acrimonious debate. "Evidence. When we have that, it won't matter what the girl expresses or doesn't. Ziva, take the Luminol and see what you can get outside." In the light he knows she won't get much, they should wait until they can have Maintenance turn off the hall lights, but resources and time are both too limited. They can't cut off access to the hallway. She will check the opposite wall and door. "Ducky, what do you have?"

"At the moment," the man hates to state the obvious, "two women killed by the same bullet. I can do little more until Mr. Palmer and I get the bodies back."

"Then do it. Take Sky with you."

"Jethro–"

"I didn't mean to _assist_. I want her in Interrogation One when I get back."

"I know that. I was referring to her riding beside me with her friend's dead body in the back."

"Just what she needs to shake her up." Ducky turns to look down at Huston's body. "Maybe it'll wipe the smile off her face."

Ducky turns back but Gibbs ignores the glare.

x

"You know her, LeeJay," Carpenter says to Gibbs. "What's your take on her?"

Gibbs wants to play this close to the vest for now. "My take?"

"She turned off the waterworks pretty damn fast, but she was happy to see us. Really happy. She was going to let us in, changed her mind, then acted surprised and got sobby when she saw the body. She turned it off four minutes later. To me, that's acting."

"To me too," Ziva's voice filters in from the hall.

"But is she that good an actress?"

"She's a musician," Gibbs tells him. "Plays violin."

"She is a twenty-four year old young lady," Ducky says, stepping nearly between them, "studying medicine preparatory to becoming a Doctor and, in time, a Medical Examiner; while supporting herself as fifth violin with the Washington Renaissance orchestra."

"You taking on another assistant, Ducky?" the trench-coated detective asks, impressed by the man's sharpness. It can't be easy to have a friend suspected of murder, or is he reacting to his own unvoiced doubts?

"We have discussed it," Ducky admits. "When she graduates this spring with a Doctorate in Medicine she would move on to the additional required training. That includes a one year medical Internship followed by four years of Pathology residency, but it would _not _be inappropriate for her to supplement that with on-the-job practical experience. Whether that is at NCIS is something she would have to apply for and it will hardly be immediate."

"But you'd support her." Carpenter wants to know just how far the man would go in backing his friend. He notes Gibbs is just as interested in the answer.

"Yes. I grant you the budget is too tight to allow a second Assistant and she would have to be certified before she could even _apply_; but yes, if she did one day apply, I would give her a good recommendation."

x

This says a lot to Gibbs, not just personally but for her presumed competence on a crime scene. He'd been satisfied with her performance during the three weeks in which she'd substituted for Palmer during the man's honeymoon in Hawaii. She may have been a crime scene newbie, but he hadn't seen any gross mistakes. Of course, Ducky would never mention any others.

But Carpenter still can't let go of her mercurial behavior. "She didn't seem broken up over her friend. She got over it pretty damn fast."

"Not really;" Ducky maintains, "that is just an indication of her normal temperament."

Gibbs gives the detective a quick nod of confirmation. Her 'normal temperament' had been a formidable challenge for him during their infrequent and, fortunately, brief encounters. Though he frequently relegates Palmer to the background when dealing with Ducky, it was harder to think of Sky as a hat rack.

"Do tell," Carpenter urges.

"If people's dispositions can be described as 'sunny'," Ducky tells the taller man, "then hers would most strongly resemble a supernova. I was, in fact, at one time considering checking to be certain her disposition was not enhanced by some form of, shall we say, chemical assistance, but such was not the case."

DiNozzo looks up from his sketch pad. "I gotta've heard you discreetly talk her into giving Abby a urine sample."

"As I _indicated_, it was not necessary." Ducky cuts DiNozzo out of his attention. "No, Miss Sky comes by her joie de vivre quite naturally, I assure you. I believe Abby once described her as being 'hard wired for ecstasy'."

"If you say so," Carpenter grants, still dubious. "I do remember her at the Sollecito house."

He can't remember the last time he'd seen anyone, newbie or otherwise, so happy to be at a Crime Scene - even though in her enthusiasm she'd spotted a vital clue that more experienced eyes had missed because they _were _more experienced. Sometimes newbies have their place, even though Carpenter wishes that place was in Detroit.

"Sammy has always been a young woman particularly in touch with her emotions," Ducky insists, annoyed at the course this speculation is taking. "After the catharsis of grief, her normal state started to reassert itself. I assure you, there is nothing sinister about it."  
Carpenter doesn't hide how unconvinced he is.

xx

Ziva reenters the apartment, a spray bottle of Luminol in one hand and digital camera in the other. "I found a void pattern 7 feet high by 3 wide in the far wall." This doesn't please anyone. Tiny droplets little more than mist had traveled across the hall, imprinting themselves on the opposite wall and door. From the size, the body that blocked the high velocity microdrops could have been small and very close or large and further back from the door.

They must, for now, make do with inconclusives.

"Did you see any blood on Sky when you talked to her?" Gibbs asks Ziva. He hadn't, but at that time he'd met her in the hall he hadn't been looking for any.

"No, but she could have washed and changed her clothes."

He doubts she'd come into the apartment to change. That shot would have been deafening, would have called to at least some potential witness. Her screams had opened doors up and down the hall. Further, the blood that spattered and flowed in the apartment makes walking difficult for the careful investigators.

It's possible Sky had a change of clothes secreted somewhere. She certainly didn't come in here, nervous and rushed, to change out of blood-spattered clothes. As a future doctor intending to make a career as a Forensic Pathologist, she's too well trained to make _that _many blunders.

xx

While at the elevators at the base of the 'U' of hallways that run the lengths of the floor, dividing it into four sets of apartments, Tim McGee had obtained Sky's permission to test her for gunshot residue. He'd brought her outside apartment 9F, the secondary crime scene down the right hand corridor, while he went in and retrieved the kit.

It had been a bit of a balancing act, this bringing her outside the apartment of the grieving husband, but he didn't want to lose her at the elevator. When he'd gotten Ziva's urgent call he'd just caught her in time. Only the long wait for the elevator's arrival had helped him catch her. However, he has no cause to hold her and must depend upon her delight at their reunion to help convince her to cooperate with him.

But she'd hugged him with the same enthusiasm she manifested on other, 'normal' occasions, and if he didn't know there'd been a woman found in her apartment, he'd think this was a casual encounter.

He wishes he knew her better. Is this Sammy when shaken by grief, or...? He simply doesn't know how to gauge her.

x

"Seems a bit strange," Sammy says while he swabs the sleeves of her coat and her hands with long handled cotton swabs. "When I worked with Ducky I had access to all the scenes." When Tim doesn't answer, she continues. "I guess things change fast." He still doesn't answer, just continues swabbing, seemingly ignoring her nostalgic fishing. "Will you say something?"

"Something."

It almost restores her good humor. He puts the long swabs into four tubes, each of which has a half inch of clear liquid inside. He seals and shakes the vials. "Sammy, things aren't the same. You worked with us. Now–"

"I'm your suspect," she says, her tone guarded.

"Not mine," he holds up the tubes with their colorless liquid. "No blue. Test's negative."

"Could've told you that. Oh, right, I _did_."

"Show, don't tell."

"Now can I–?"

He hates to shoot her hope down. "No. You know better."

"But I'm– that is I have–"

"If you had a _badge_ you still wouldn't be working this case."

x

He feels a momentary stab of conscience but refuses to think of Shav. It was just a month ago when he'd worked a case he had no official business being involved in. His partners had bent the rules into warped pretzels to let him help in the search for the kidnapped priest.

Just the brief thought is enough to remind him, with a pang of longing, that he's supposed to be with her right this minute. Further, he has no idea how much longer into the evening this will take. Probably most of it, blast the luck. He's pleased to see Sammy again, her ecstatic hug had been fervent, sincere and spirit-boosting, but she's not _Shav_. Okay, he saw his lovely, adorable fiancé yesterday, and two days before that, and the day before that - and every day for the whole month of January but blast it, that doesn't _count_!

x

But this is different, isn't it? He brings himself back to the present, seeing Sammy's face before him and not Shav's. "And don't ask Gibbs."

"He's already pissed off with me."

"He's not 'pissed off'," he corrects. Not having seen the man, he can't be sure, but he suspects that, with the case so unexpectedly reuniting them with a friend, "he's concerned."

"Agent Gibbs is often ... concerned."

"Yes, yes he is. What about you? Your friend dead–"

"_She's not my_–!" She bites back the flare; it's too late. She continues, resigned, the revelation already made. "Well, she's not my friend anymore."

"Because she's dead?"

The look she casts up at him is as hard as her tone, and both are alien to his image of her. "She stabbed me long before someone shot her."

Tim looks for the telltale elevations of treated wounds past her open coat but finds none. He suspects, however, that he'll learn about those wounds soon enough.


	4. Witnesses

Chapter Four  
Witnesses

A half hour later Tony DiNozzo escorts Samantha Sky to the ME van. She seats herself between Ducky and Jimmy, leaning more toward Ducky so she won't crowd the driver. The corpses of Wendy Langley and Karen Huston ride side-by-side in the rear.

While the other Agents investigate the two crime scenes, Tim McGee and Michelle Palmer begin separate interviews in the other seven apartments in this east hallway, the ones surrounding the Sky/Huston home. To cover all fifteen apartments of possible witnesses on either side of two corridors on this floor, 4 to a row, will be the work of hours.

Dinner, when it comes, will probably consist of whatever fare can be found in the Headquarters' café, never a first choice even at lunch hour.

The pair starts at the end of the hall by the emergency staircase, intending to work their way forward. They hope DiNozzo and Ziva David will soon commence in the west hall. They, however, have the more promising job – the shot had come from this side of the building.

Unfortunately, since this is outside the room of the civilian death, it is Metro Homicide's side and jurisdiction, a balancing act on the Gibbs/Carpenter level. Staff Sergeant Langley was killed on the other side of the floor, the shot coming through the wall of Sky and Huston's apartment to kill Langley while she stood in her shower. The police CSI team is overdue.

Tim and Michelle are grateful that Gibbs and Metro Detective Lieutenant Carpenter will only want a factual recounting of the important details; therefore they needn't consult yet with their partners. The one thing that would make this long evening even more painful than it has already been is a DiNozzo campfire.

x

Tim, before starting interviews of Sky's right side neighbors at Hampton Arms, glances at Michelle behind him. She's about to knock on the door of Apartment P at the end of the corridor, close to the fire door. He tries to restrain a burst of jealousy. She'll end the night driving home from Headquarters with her husband – whenever they manage to leave. 'I might not see Shav at all tonight. By the time I'm done she might be in bed.'

A moment later his cell phone is in his hand, his finger is on the speed dial but he forces himself to stop. 'What am I going to say? Sorry about dinner? Wish you were here? That's so stupid. Besides, I can't call her now. I have to do these interviews. What can I say? I'd love to come over? If I could? But I don't know when I can get off? That is so stupid. And go to the Rectory at that hour? Right. That's really stupid. Get her out of bed maybe at what ungodly hour? That's stupidest of all. I'll call her tomorrow. I'll call her tonight.'

He presses the speed dial.

He slaps the phone closed and jams it into its holster.

xx

Residents of the first pair of apartments, L and P, have claimed they heard, or actually did hear, nothing of the pre-three-o'clock incident. Tim, now in apartment K which shares a wall between J's - Sky's and Huston's - bedroom and K's living room, has somewhat better luck with Maggie Pinheiro. The wiry, gray-haired woman wearing a thick bathrobe over her heavy clothing seems far more willing to talk than his first 'witnesses' were. The short woman's apartment smells of lilacs and Ben-Gay.

"Have you heard anything unusual in the building lately?" he asks, trying to be general enough not to be leading.

"You mean like yelling and screaming, things crashing hard enough to knock pictures off my wall?"

"Er, yeah, like that." It's more than he'd expected.

"It's been going on for about, what, three weeks. The girls next door are usually pretty quiet, don't disturb me, but yesterday was the worst. Screaming, yelling, things hitting the walls, I thought they were looking to kill each other. Then it got quiet. I figured things would cool down and I could get some sleep. It's been quiet this evening, then a while ago I heard screaming again. I'm not the one who called the police," she finishes defensively.

"No, ma'am. Could you make out what was being said in any of the fights?"

"No, honey, not all of it. My ears aren't quite as good as when I was only seventy, but there were times they got pretty loud. They were screaming at the top of their lungs. One of them, she wanted the other to get out. That if she didn't get her ass out of the apartment, she was going to kill her."

'Oh, _why _do people say that just before someone dies?' Gemcity's persona implores. Tim doesn't want to think like a writer tonight. "Which one said this?"

"The little one, the blonde, Sammy her name is. I was surprised; she's usually such a sweet little thing, always so peppy; cheery, that is. Whenever I see her she always has something nice to say. If she sees me coming back from shopping she'll stop and help me with my groceries." She smiles fondly. "Thing's not even as big as I am. The other, the brunette, she'll not even give me the time of day. Sammy, she'll stop to chat, ask me about my great-grandkids–"

"Yes, ma'am." He'd rather not get into that recounting.

x

"Well, this past three weeks it's like they're fighting all the time," Pinheiro says. "Yesterday she came in, Sammy I mean, I could tell 'cause the door slammed hard enough to shake the building, and she starts screaming - just long, bloodcurdling shrieks, one after another. I thought someone was getting murdered. I was halfway to the phone, going to call 911, the police, you know - then I hear 'get the fuck out of here before I kill you'."

McGee notes this in his pad, regretting to have to. This is a sad development for his bubbly friend.

"It's just the start," she tells him. "They get into a screaming match and then I could hear them fighting, things crashing, stuff breaking. Then, nearly an hour ago, just after I walked in - I'd gone shopping for some things - the screaming starts again. I thought the policeman might still be here - I saw the policeman when I got here, did I mention that? Anyway, I didn't open my door. I thought it was him just now when you knocked. After the two screams it got real quiet and I didn't know what to make of it."

That answers his unasked question about if she'd heard anything else, such as a gunshot. It was a rifle, had to be to cause this uch damage, and would've been like thunder in the corridors. "How long had you been home before you heard this latest screaming?"

"Ten, maybe fifteen minutes."

"Did you speak to the policeman by the elevator?"

"Yes, but why he was here I didn't want to know. He asked me what apartment I was going to, I told him and that was it."

"And since the screams?"

"Nothing. You don't suppose...?" Pinheiro asks, apprehension blooming.

Tim has no intention of answering, and certainly none of guessing. "I don't know."

At least now he has a time line. It's a bad one, and not only because she'd missed the shot but for the nail it seems to drive into Sammy's coffin. The last bout of screams had been Sammy's discovery of Karen Huston's body.

x

"What can you tell me about them, their relationship?"

For the first time Pinhiero seems reticent. "Well, they seem to be pretty good friends. Up to a month or so ago I never heard a cross word between them, not that I hear a lot, you know. But this past month cross words are all I seem to hear."

"Yes." He tries again to get her back on track. "So how would you describe their relationship?"

"Well ... They were very friendly - toward each other, that is. Until lately I didn't hear a cross word out of them, that is, when I could hear anything at all. Then cross words, screaming and fighting, were all I did hear. Did I just say that?

"Well, anyway, as to their relationship," she continues, growing reluctant now, "well, I'm not ... I'm not sure how I'd put it. They were, well, they were a ... 'couple', you might say. I'm not quite sure how I'd put it..."

"Lesbian?" Tim supplies.

"Oh, so you know." She's relieved, he thinks, probably that she doesn't have to be the one to reveal it. "Well, it didn't make a difference to me; I'm way too old to care about such things."

"Yes, ma'am."

"_Watch it, sonny._"

"I um - I mean –"

She puts a bony hand on his arm, "I'm just messin' with you, son. But Sammy and Karen, her name is, they were very affectionate, didn't care who knew it. I once talked to her - Sammy, not Karen, we rarely spoke - about being discreet. She just waved it off. Nothing there was that could get under her skin. That girl has all the optimism and cheer in the world, God bless her. But Sammy wasn't exactly like Karen; I forget what you call it, but I'd once in a while see her with some young man or another."

"Bi-sexual."

"Yes, that's the word."

Sammy hadn't been secretive about that either to her friends during her three weeks at NCIS. The government's policy for the military of 'don't-ask-don't-tell' was definitely for someone else, not her. "But not Karen."

"No, she was opener - more open? - Karen didn't hide it. She was the one who'd wear 'Gay Pride' or 'Rainbow' buttons or what have you. Sammy was more discreet. Once in a while, when we'd chat, I'd hear about this or that boy. She talked about boys, never girls; but bless her, I knew. A couple of months ago she was really sweet on this one boy. She talked about him _constantly _for a couple of weeks."

"Really?" He writes quickly, having the feeling that this segue is going to be valuable.

x

"She was really sweet on him, talked about him every time we spoke. I think he might have been in her orchestra or something, she's a musician did you know, though she's going to school to be a doctor. She'd make a wonderful doctor, don't you know. She helped me no end with my–"

"Yes. Do you think she told him about her ... living arrangements?"

She shakes her head. "I don't know. Some people wouldn't approve of her being, you know, bi-sexual. I think she did, though."

"How did he react?"

"Bless me, I don't know."

"Did she ever tell you about her dates with him?"

"No. She occasionally would talk of dates with one young man or another, but I don't know as they ever did date, though for a while there she couldn't talk of anyone else. It must've been some crush - until she stopped talking about him that is."

"Did you ever meet him?"

"Me? Lord no. My thought was she didn't want to bring him here. Then, after a while, I didn't hear about him anymore." She laughs. "You know young people, their affections rise and fall with the price of eggs."

"But she was sweet on him?"

"For a while, but I think it was just a crush."

Tim isn't so sure. Since Sammy's bi-sexual, perhaps this supposed boyfriend had decided to remove the lesbian competition? At any rate, they need to follow up. "Did she ever tell you where he was, any way she reached him?"

"No, dear, I never did even hear his name. All I knew was that she had a lovey name for him, a pet name, you know. What was it now she called him? Dicky? No, it was Ducky."

Tim closes his pad.

xx

Michelle Palmer has learned much of the same information about fights and screams from Ted Glaser, 19 years old. He lives with his parents in 9O, across and one apartment further down the hall. Extracting the information, however, had been challenging.

"Like I said, I really don't want to get involved," he insists for the sixth time.

"I'm not looking for more than information."

"I don't want to go to court."

"I give you my word I will not bring you into court." 'That'll be the D.A.' "I just need to know what it was you heard earlier today."

"You know," he says, adopting a barroom manner, "you really are very pretty."

She's put up with this four times and is tired of being polite. He might get somewhere with someone else, if he showered, she thinks, restraining herself from wrinkling her nose. She raises her left hand. "I'm also very married."

"Really?"

She can tell he's thinking of ways around that. "He's a Medical Examiner."

"A doctor, huh?"

"Not exactly," she tells him with a devastating smile. "He slices people open and pokes around inside them to see how they died."

x

Watching his color fade, she's sure she's proof against any further pickups. Now if he'll just keep his distance; a useless hope, she admits, since there's no 'downwind'. "Now, about what you heard."

"Oh, yeah, right, well, I was watching TV–"

"At what time was this?"

"Well, Star Trek had just gone off on SciFi, they had a Trek marathon, you know, the new ones Roddenberry's son made? I was just going to the kitchen to get something before the next–"

"Yes."

The color still hasn't begun to return to his face. "I guess it was about three. Well, as I said I just got up when _**BLAM**_!"

Unfortunately he also tries to reproduce the volume, which drives Michelle back two steps. "Blam." Her rendition is much quieter.

"Then I heard a door slam real loud–" she puts her hands up to ward this off, "then someone ran past to the door at the end, that bangs open and I hear someone in the stairwell running down."

"Then what?"

"Then nothing. Whatever happened, I didn't want to know."

xx

As informative as the information gathered about Apartment 9J, Sky/Huston's place, has been when McGee and Palmer pass it on, Gibbs' primary concern is in apartment 9F and Marine Staff Sergeant Wendy Langley.

When he and DiNozzo enter, still accompanied by Lt. Jeff Carpenter, John Langley is still seated on the couch, covered in blood. His eyes stare a trillion miles away. Gibbs has seen this look before, not in combat but in those nightmare minutes and hours that the survivors must endure after it.

They get no closer, Carpenter signals his partner Detective Clifford Scott to come from the chair beside the couch to them. "What've you got?" His voice barely carries six inches.

"Hardly much - he's out of it. Shell shocked."

Gibbs, who's seen what they used to call shell shock before the psychs and the PCs got involved, doesn't contest it. He signals DiNozzo, who crosses the room and coaxes the distant man out of his seat. He'll take him into the bedroom, out of earshot, to try his own fortune.

x

"He'd been out looking for a wall unit for the bedroom," Scott says when the three investigators are alone. "They wanted to set up an entertainment system, one tier above another. Anyway, he says he came home just a few minutes before we got the first 911." The investigators already have the time line.

"What kind of relationship do they have?" Carpenter asks.

"You'd think he worships the ground she walks on. Of course, when you have only a few days during furloughs, it's easy to push aside the little things. He'd wanted to make this a second honeymoon a few times removed."

Gibbs remembers coming home from overseas on Leaves with such hopes. Too many times, though, the reality hadn't been as good as the dreams. It hadn't, however, been quite this bad, except for with Shannon and Molly.

"They had tickets to see a play tonight," Scott continues. "She was getting ready for that when she was shot. He came home and found her like that." His tone carries the period; full stop.

"That's _it_?" Gibbs and his team had gleaned more off Huston's dead body in the other apartment over nearly two hours than the detective had gotten from a live man.

"I haven't seen a guy shattered like that in a couple'a years. He seems lost without her. When I did pull him out, for a minute he talked about tearing whoever did this to bits, but more about eating the gun himself."

All the more reason to keep Langley and Sky far apart. Langley seems to be the typical city denizen, however: 'know not thy neighbor'.

"Better keep a suicide watch on him for a while," Carpenter recommends to his partner, who only nods. Carpenter turns to Gibbs. "You bringing him in?"

Gibbs decides to hold for what DiNozzo can learn. It will accomplish little to bring the man to Headquarters; they can do more by researching the couple in Marine files and other records. Tomorrow morning is soon enough to come back and fill in the details. By then, Langley might recover enough to talk. Above all, he wants to keep Sky and Langley far apart.

"I'll have the Yard send over some Bereavement shrinks and I'll have some Agents stay the night. Does he have anybody who can come over, any relative?"

"No relatives," Scott says. "He can't even come up with the name of a friend. I found his phone book, you'd think he'd never seen any of the names in it before."

"Just as well, I guess." Gibbs doesn't really want anybody over but a professional. A well-meaning but clueless friend could do the shattered man more harm than good.

"He's yours," Carpenter acknowledges, granting Gibbs' primacy over a Marine's dependant, civilian or no. "I want to get in with you to interview Sky," he glances at his watch, "preferably before dinner turns into breakfast."

"You don't want our café's breakfast. We do take-out."

xx

It will take a day or two to conduct a thorough search of the combined crime scenes. Among other things, the blood-spattered door to apartment J must be removed and replaced. Forensics teams will strip everything from Sky's living room and recreate it, if needed, at Headquarters. Until both MPDC and NCIS are ready for that combined sweep, a Beta shift agent and a uniformed officer will be posted at each scene. They're to take positions at the ends of the hallways at either side of the elevators at the bottom of the 'U', which will allow them to monitor the entire floor and still communicate to stave off boredom before their eventual reliefs.

The investigators proceed to NCIS Headquarters with such evidence as could be found. There they will interview their unwilling guest.

xxx

Gibbs and Carpenter enter Interrogation One. The Spartan room contains only a long table and two folding chairs. Samantha Sky looks up at them, just as empty. She's morose, her manner absolutely unlike her normal bubbly demeanor. "I didn't do _anything_."

"No one said you did. We just want to talk."

"We could've talked at home."

"It's a crime scene." He's annoyed he has to tell her something she already knows the rules on.

She sighs, stands up and comes around the long table to him. She barely comes up to his chest. "Agent Gibbs, I'm not an imbecile so please don't treat me like one. We've _had _this conversation already, above Compton Lake."

"Yes, we did, Chicky, and–"

"_It's about time_! I was beginning to think you didn't like me anymore." But her smile is a ghost of her usual one.

"Liking or not has nothing to do with it. You and Karen Huston have been fighting for nearly a month. Now she's dead. What should we do?"

She glances at Carpenter, refuses to feel small between the two giants. "Talk at Metro?"

"Thought you'd be more comfortable here."

"I'd be more _comfortable_ in Autopsy – with Karen – finding out what happened. But that isn't going to happen, is it? Why is _NCIS_ involved?" she demands, emotion which up to now had been barely kept below the surface breaking through. "Karen was neither Navy nor Marine and I was only a temp during the Palmers' honeymoon _months _ago! What's going on?"

"What were the fights about?"

She stares up into his eyes, tries to probe him as he's probing her. "You're not going to tell me anything."

Gibbs is glad she's astute enough not to make it a question. She turns, goes around the table to her chair and plops down into it. He takes his usual chair opposite her. Carpenter remains in the right corner behind her, near the plasma screen mounted on the rear wall, where he can see front and back with the aid of the large one-way mirror in the wall behind Gibbs.

"Who's watching?" Sammy asks, looking past Gibbs to the mirror.

He has no reason not to tell her. "McGee, David."

"I guess one out of two... Recording?" His eyes ask the question. "Of course, what do I think? All right, Abby calls you 'the human lie detector' so I won't even try. I'll tell you what we were fighting about, so you'll _see _I didn't kill her."


	5. Samantha's Tale

Chapter Five  
Samantha's tale

Sammy Sky looks up into Gibbs' blank eyes as they sit opposite one another in Interrogation One, and she wishes it were possible for her to have such self control. Lack of expression had never been an issue with her; she's spent her life so open that she's completely out of practice with anything else. Occasionally that quality got her in trouble, but even that had never stopped her.

Of course, it has never gotten her into such trouble as this.

She's made especially nervous by the taciturn police Lieutenant hovering behind her left shoulder. She tries to forget him, but he dominates her attention, standing in the mirror before her.

"I met Karen during our first year in Medical School. GW," she tells Gibbs, working to shut out Carpenter. The harder she tries, the worse she fails. "We had something special in common."

Her eyes dare Gibbs to say it aloud, but this is more a mask than true defiance. She turns it on the mirror before her, glaring at the trench coated detective. Her stance doesn't work on either of them but Gibbs feels no need to make an issue of, or even address for now, her 'orientation'. For now, he'll leave consideration of the women's personal inclinations aside.

"We had some great years together," Sammy says, keeping her hands on her lap, hidden by the table. If she knew how little this hides their shaking from the two men, she'd know she needn't bother. "Then last month," she says, focusing on the story, "it all fell apart."

"Why?" Carpenter asks, making her jump at the sudden word. He expects the answer to be about their 'special understanding', but he's disillusioned.

"School," she tells Gibbs as though he'd been the one who asked. If she ignores the police detective, maybe he'll go away. "For years we'd helped each other study; we had a lot of the same courses, the same classes if not always the same professors - sometimes I went mornings if I had to work late with the Renaissance. The curriculums, the _books_, they're the same; so Karen and I helping each other was a breeze. Sometimes we'd have the same class but that was just icing; it never made more than a tiny difference."

"Sounds like a good relationship," Gibbs grants when she pauses.

"It worked _fine_; we were Acing most of our courses. We were well on our way; four months from now you'd have to call me _Doctor _Sky." But her smile is bitter. She sighs and the light goes out in her pale blue eyes, replaced by bitter darkness. "Then, a month ago, it all went to _shit_."

x

"How?" Gibbs asks, giving a flickering glance to Carpenter, who backs off from her back.

Sammy, relieved to have the gargoyle withdraw, even if he is still in the mirror, takes a deep breath, steels herself and focuses on Gibbs and the nightmare she must relive. "Last month I turned in my mid-term paper, twenty-five pages on myocardial infarctions; diagnosis, treatment, operation and recovery. I was feeling _really _good about it. I'd worked on it for over two _months_. If I didn't get an A+, I was ready to _eat_ it." She wishes now she could capture that confidence, those good feelings, that élan that has so deserted her in her hours of greatest need.

"I turned it in on the due date. I _always _turn things in on the due date because I'm always tweaking and revising. Everything has to be _perfect_, and I take advantage of every minute to make _sure _it's perfect."

x

Gibbs reflects that Sky is the only one he knows who, even when she's not thrilled or excited, speaks the language of emphatics. What had occasionally been a strain for him when she'd worked for Ducky he now counts as a help.

x

"I was very confident. It was a _fifth _of my trimester grade and I'd turned in the best Professor Bullock was _ever _going to see. I was ready to move on. About a week later Bullock called me into his office." She smiles, but this one is forced. "I went in on Cloud Nine, all set to pamper my ego. I was rehearsing in my head everything I was going to say. I sat down and he put the paper in front of me." She leans forward, sudden anger leading. "He gave me a _fifty_!"

x

"Why?"

She fights the anger back, just manages to control it. She forces herself to sit back, her motions careful and deliberate, like she'd rather scream the words, so she fights to keep a level tone. "He said he was being generous with that. He'd reviewed my work with the other Professors." Her hard won restraint cracks. "They decided my course work for the past year gets me a forty-nine average!"

"Why?"

"They said I _cheated_!" she grates, holding tightly to restrain rage that seems as foreign to her as green blood. "And that I'd been cheating all _year_."

"Again, why?" As mercurial as her emotions are, he knows his calm questioning rips at her as he'd intended it would.

Sammy clenches her fists, uncharacteristic rage filling her face. She remains so for many long moments, but then manages to force her fury down. When she does, her voice is toneless, all her emotion locked away. He's not disappointed; plenty of opportunities to light a new flare.

x

"They say that, for the past year, everything I turned in from home had been too similar to Karen's." Life returns with outrage. Though she tries hard and nearly succeeds, she can't keep a calm veneer with such fire raging within her.

"They said they hadn't caught on to _my _cheating because we didn't have all the same professors and right answers are right answers. They knew we studied together so our scores over the years surprised nobody."

"But that paper?"

"Same professor, essay format. Karen turned hers in on the Tuesday just before, I handed mine in on the Friday it was due. He showed me both of them. Except for some little changes in phrasing I made in the final few days, they were virtually _identical_."

"Huston was taking advantage of your perfectionism to beat you by several days each time."

Sammy slaps the table with both hands, the shot loud. "_YOU _get it - they _didn't_!"

"Why didn't they?"

"_Apparently _my 'in on the due date' is _their _'barely by the last minute'. I was given a choice: confess to _cheating _and repeat the entire fourth year or face expulsion.

"I walked out."

x

She sits back, seems to be emotionally drained. Gibbs wouldn't have thought it draining, but she has evidently been riding this emotional roller coaster for a long time. Most of her effort is in keeping her outrage in check long enough to tell her side of the story.

"It took me until I was halfway home before the whole thing hit me. A year. A fucking _year_! I suddenly _understood _all the little things that meant nothing when they were happening. How lately Karen always seemed to have so much more time than I did, how she could go out and do things, go to parties while I was beating the books."

She shoves away from the table, stalks to the empty corner, distancing herself from the men. She can't distance herself from the green-blooded anger.

"I went home. I confronted her. She didn't deny it." She whirls, comes back to the table, leans over Gibbs. "_She didn't deny it_!" she nearly shouts. "She looked me right in the face and told me how it wasn't a big _deal_. But it _was _a big deal! They were going to _expel _me. _Me_! They were going to expel _me_! Or make me take – over – a year I can't _afford_. Do you _know _how hard it is to become a doctor when you've been _expelled _from Medical School?"

"What did you do?" Gibbs' tone is so placid against her fire that it drives her to further fury. In all the time he'd known her, he'd seen her angry just once and that was nothing like this broiling rage.

"I tried to get her to confess. _Make _her confess. She wouldn't! She stood there and fucking _refused _to _confess_! My best friend - the woman I trusted more than I trust my brother - was going to _graduate _in the spring as a doctor and I was going to _repeat _a year or be _expelled_!"

He looks up into her red face. "You could fight it." His tone, even more placid than before, throws another bucket of gasoline onto her fire.

She pounds the table. "I _am _fighting it! I got a lawyer - who I can't _afford _- and there's a hearing next _week_. Meantime I wanted Karen to own up to what she did, but she wouldn't! We fought. First just with my mouth, then I really got mad and we fought. I couldn't get her to confess.

"I tried to get her _out _of the apartment but she wouldn't move. Both our names are on the damned lease and she wouldn't get out. I had to _live _there with a best friend who'd turned into a back-stabbing _bitch_! She wouldn't move, told me to get another lawyer!"

"You could've gotten out."

She leans over the table and screams. "_Where was I gonna go_? All my violin money's tied up in the apartment. I've missed three concerts 'cause I had to study for mid-terms!"

x

Gibbs sympathizes, appreciating her feeling of being trapped, but asks "What happened today?" He'd heard from McGee, in his report from the neighbor Pinheiro, about the climactic battle earlier this afternoon.

She collapses back into the chair, fury drowned in a tsunami of sadness. "They gave me a 'bargain'," she tells him. "_Their _sort of bargain. Repeat six months. If we go to the hearing and I lose, I'll definitely be expelled."

"You confronted her again?"

She leans forward, the anger back in full force. "_No_, I came home and started _screaming _at her and tried to beat the _crap _out of her."

"And?"

She leaps to her feet, up to her full five foot two height, the chair crashing behind her. "_Damn it, Agent Gibbs, she's got eight inches on me_! She's nearly as tall as _you _are. I'm not a fighter, I'm a _musician _and when I'm that mad I'm no trained Marine. She kicked my _ass _worse than Ziva did!"

He sees no bruises; he'll let Ziva confirm that part of her story. No, he decides, Michelle. For now, he's counting on her mercurial emotions. When people lose control, they forget about guile. "Sit down, Miss Sky."

She uprights the chair, plops down into it, but all she wants to know is, "Do you believe me?"

"What happened?"

She leaps forward in the chair. "I just _told _you!"

"You told me you fought."

"Damn it, _yes_, we fought. I wanted her to confess or I'd tear the confession out of her bloody carcass! I mean - _damn it_, I didn't mean that! _Yes_, we fought; I was too mad and she beat the _crap _out of _me_. I left. When I could get up I hobbled out with my fucking tail between my legs."

"And how was Huston when you left?"

"Alive. Alive and gloating. Oh, she had a bloody nose, her hair was messed but - Agent Gibbs, I know you hear this a lot, but I did _not _kill her."

"You just wanted to."

"I wanted her to _confess_! If I killed her, she'd never confess and then I can't prove _she's _the guilty one."

"You were pretty upset she was dead. Was that a friend grieving or did you see your career disappearing?"

x

She freezes. He expected his words would make her flare up again but she stops, thinks hard, finally admits; "I honestly don't know. At that moment I honestly don't know which it was."

That, at least, Gibbs believes.

Looking intently at her face, probing every nuance, he asks her: "Do you own a gun?"

"I hate guns."

"I didn't ask you that."

The look she gives him is more than unfriendly, it's deadly. "No, Agent Gibbs, I do not own a gun." He continues to stare, reading her face, her body, her voice. "I've heard all about you from Abby, remember. She told me they use you to calibrate lie detectors. I'm telling you the truth, I do not own a gun."

He truly regrets that she chose to lie.

x

He gets up. "I'll have an agent come down with a change of clothes." Sammy looks up, wants to protest but apparently decides it's useless and hangs her head in defeat. "She'll escort you to Holding."

"Am I under arrest?" she asks the table top, doesn't look up to see the look exchanged between the two investigators.

"You've given us a lot. Until we're done checking, you're our guest."

This time she does look up. "I may have my head stuck in a medical book much of the day, but I do know you can't hold me here if I'm not under arrest, so–" she starts to rise.

"Sit down. You're staying."

"I'm _not_."

He tries to decide if she's testing the limits of her chances, pressing her luck or truly can't see the whole picture. If she were a member of his team he'd give her a wake-up call that would leave her ears ringing all night. As it is he'll let his words do the slapping. "Think less like a _student_ and more like a Medical Examiner!"

"What?"

He glares at her, exasperated because he knows her to be too quick-witted to be so obtuse. "I don't know if you shot Huston or not. But we measured Huston and ran the bullet's trajectory back from your bathroom wall to where she was standing. Know what we found?"

"No," she snaps defiantly, "_what_?"

"The bullet went through the bottom of her lung, below the level of her heart. It wasn't a fatal shot. Oh, she died, but it was as much from blood filling her lung as from the shot. Ducky says she lived for about a minute or two before she bled out _and _drowned."

He watches the color drain from her face. Despite her experience, despite her feelings, Huston was still a friend.

He intends to distress her more.

"She's taller than you are and her arms are longer than yours, so you'd be standing a little more to the left. If _you'd _been the one to open that door, that bullet would've gotten you," he points to a spot between her breasts, "right here."


	6. New Vision

Chapter Six  
New Vision

Gibbs walks into the Forensics Lab an hour after leaving Sammy Sky in Interrogation. He expects Abby, if she's still in at - he checks his watch - 2253, to be winding down from the long day. Instead he finds her programming her Mass Spectrometer - to what end he doesn't know and is too fatigued to ask.

Nor does he want to ask about the rows of tiny skulls and crossbones that trail a line up the back of each black nylon covered leg. The symbols duck under black material that peeks out from under the hem of her white lab coat. Gibbs has long ago ceased giving his opinion of the woman's fashions, but if the black garment were three times as long it might deserve the title of 'skirt'.

He doesn't think that she's waiting for him, but she straightens and turns. If the bony symbols were meant to be provocative, he won't try to classify the overwhelmed bodice or black corset that she almost wears under her white lab coat. It's very obvious she's dressed for clubbing and changed her mind. He doesn't have to ask her opinion of this. Her eyes flash, her tone bites hard enough to draw blood. "Gibbs, McGee tells me you have Sammy Sky in Holding."

"News travels fast," he grants, determined to ignore the effect she'd so obviously tried to provoke.

"How could you, Gibbs? She's _innocent_."

"Did you find anything with the bullet?" The first Evidence bag had gone back with Ducky and Jimmy when they'd brought Sky in, long before the agents had left the Hampton Arms. He expects the medicine men downstairs, having turned Sky over to Agents on Beta Shift, to be into the preliminary stages of Wendy Langley's autopsy. With anyone else the subject of this investigation, and the research not being declared urgent, Abbu would probably have started her work in the morning. As it is, he suspects he'll have a hard time getting rid of her.

"Not yet, nothing definitive that is, but I will."

"Well, any blood spatter on her clothes?" There hadn't been anything obvious, but even if Sky'd stood well back from the door, microscopic droplets travel much further than blowback spatter.

"I'm still waiting for them to bring her clothes down. We don't have a lot on hand we can trade off with for her, other than scrubs that'd hang off her. Even Michelle's clothes would be loose except in the chest. When she worked here her scrubs had to be 'special order', remember?"

"Did you find anything to implicate anyone else?"

"Not _yet_."

His annoyance turns his tone as sharp as hers. "Then how can you tell me she's innocent?"

"Because, Gibbs, she _is_." He tries to stare her down. "I feel she is." More staring. "In my gut. She _has _to be. You follow _your _gut."

"When I do, there's evidence to back it up."

"Not always. What about–?"

"Abby."

"I know her, Gibbs. She's too _innocent _to be guilty."

He takes a step closer. "If anyone else had told me that–"

"You'd head-slap them, I know."

"You're not immune."

"Gibbs–"

He silences her with one raised finger. "Don't give me faith, you're not O'Mallory–"

"Like I'd look good in light blue–"

"Give me evidence, something I can take back to Carpenter, because she's _his _chief suspect. I haven't decided yet if she's a killer or a victim who got missed. I need you and the others to find out."

"Okay, then I'll tell you what I have on the bullet." She leads him to the microscope on her workstation, her outrage vanishing as soon as science is invoked. He walks past the microscope and waits at the plasma screen set onto the wall.

x

In dividing up the evidence, never an easy job even among friends, Carpenter had relinquished control of the bullet. He'd said it was because it was found in Staff Sergeant Langley's apartment after passing through its second victim. Gibbs suspects it's more likely because Metro will need a week to find the time in which to analyze it.

For all the impacts the metal had experienced, it's in particularly good condition. When Gibbs had seen the moderately blunted metal on site, the reason for this had been obvious.

"A full metal jacket .308 Winchester Magnum," Abby announces.

He checks his watch. 2302. He'd like to be home before tomorrow. "Tell me what I don't know, Abs."

"Contrary to popular belief, the Winchester was not developed–"

He turns from the screen. "Abby."

"All right." She cancels the lighter manner, forced though it had been, as effectively as throwing a switch, and what she has to say isn't funny. "The bullet, in addition to being jacketed, was Teflon coated."

She'd felt the Earth give way beneath her when she'd found this. She longs to be able to pull back the words, to slam them into a box and drop them off a cliff.

A Teflon coated bullet can slip through such defenses as bullet-proof vests and body armor. It's a particularly deadly and devious weapon known as an 'Agent killer'.

For a woman standing at point-blank range and clad in a tee shirt, and even for a second woman unprotected by an intervening wall tiled on each side between the two apartments, this is overkill.

"The blood is in two types, from both Huston and Langley," Abby continues, not wanting to consider the implications of her finding. Best to concentrate on lab results, on Science and Facts. Push emotion away. Her friend _cannot _be involved in this!

x

"Langley's O-negative, confirmed by the Armed Forces Database. I also found a black fiber, some microscopic particles of wood, ceramic and glass, as well as vinyl. I can trace the bullet's path, microscopically, from Huston's tee-shirt to the box of LPs."

"I'm more interested in the gun that fired it," Gibbs tells her, returning his attention to the enlarged image. "Did you learn anything from the rifling?"

"The rotation and spacing of lands and grooves are definitive. I'm lucky to have gotten decent rifling off the bullet - it was a pretty near thing. The ballistics database confirms it came from - no surprise - a Winchester .308."

"What else?"

The look on her face when he turns back is pure exasperation. "I've had the bullet for two hours, Gibbs. Be happy I have as much as I do."

Even if he didn't have the sharpness of her tone, he can see the fatigue in her eyes. He can also see, from where he stands, the small bottle of eye drops set on her desk in the next room. They tell the rest of the story.

"Go home." The fact that she doesn't argue convinces him it's the right decision. "Get a fresh start in the morning."

"Can I see her first?"

"No."

xxx

Tim McGee had skipped returning to Headquarters, contenting himself with resolving to get an early start in the morning. He can't get out of his mind how unfortunate it is, how wrong it is, for his bubbly friend to be involved in Langley's death. For her to be a suspect in her friend's murder is even more wrong.

Sometimes the galaxy just sucks.

When he enters his Silver Spring apartment it's eleven thirty. He pauses at his writing desk long enough to empty his pockets, slap coins and bills down harder than necessary and hear the quiet beeping of his answering machine. He needs no more than the first digit of the Caller ID announcement to know who had phoned. He hadn't been able to call her, but a press of the button reactivates his good mood.

/Hi, a chuisle, sorry to miss you./ It's Shav's favorite endearment for him, from 'mo chuisle a croi', 'pulse of my heart'. In her melodious brogue, 'ma kwishla a cree' sounds even more delightful to him. /I wanted to talk, but I guess you're busy./ That sounded pretty uncertain. There's something on her mind, something she wants to say and can't manage to record. /Talk to you soon, 'night,/ she finishes quickly and the call clicks off.

He glances at the clock on his wall – it's late but not all _that _late. He'd determined earlier not to disturb her so late but he'll try her cell, rather than the Rectory phone. If he doesn't get her, he'll try again at a more reasonable hour. He picks up his cell phone, presses the speed dial and hears buzzing from the speaker and 'the Minstrel Boy' from his bedroom.

x

Curious - she _couldn't _have left it behind the other evening - he follows the sound and is surprised to find the red haired woman awakening on his bed. She's wearing her 'uniform' of black slacks, pale blue Clerical shirt and wrap-around white collar. Disoriented, she sleepily opens the small leather pouch on her belt.

He closes his phone, cutting off 'Minstrel Boy'. Realizing the call has stopped, she instead gropes for her glasses on the mattress beside her. She finds them, pulls them on and looks up, blinks sleep away. He can so easily read her thoughts at being caught on his bed.

"It's not my birthday," he announces.

x

Siobhan giggles, but blushes prettily. "I'm so _sorry_, a chuisle, I didn't mean to fall asleep. What time is it?"

"Past eleven thirty."

"_Eleven thirty_?" she sits up quickly, swings her legs off the edge of the wide bed, "I had no idea it was so late. I've got to get _out _of here."

"Shav," his word halts her, she looks up at him, "it's not that I'd ever mind your being here; you 'hid out' here and you're always welcome... but what are you doing here?"

"I had to talk to you."

x

Reverend Siobhan O'Mallory had spent a month's sabbatical hiding from friends and her congregation in his apartment. Here she'd recuperated from the injuries she'd suffered during her ordeal at the hands of a sadistic murderer. For three days, trapped in a cement cell, she'd been beaten, tortured and repeatedly raped. He and his teammates had found and rescued her with minutes to spare. In a perverted twist, Charlie Morley had _crucified _her. It'd made little difference that he'd used ropes instead of spikes; by the time the team had found her she'd almost suffocated.

She'd spent more than four weeks here, from January to early February, recovering in body and soul from the trauma inflicted upon her. The marks of so many beatings - and worse - have faded from her face and body, but the worst ravages of her ordeal are not the ones hidden by her clothes.

The single visible remnant of her ordeal is the brace that still encases her right hand from fingers to forearm. Even the injury to the tendons of her wrist is largely healed, in another week this aid will also be gone.

Horrible as those physical wounds had been, the aftereffects of beatings and rapes, the knowledge she would not survive, had been wounds to her spirit. They are deeper than flesh and will last too long.

x

Last month, days after her rescue, she'd told all except George Donaldson, Rector of Saint Mary the Virgin Church, that she was going to Ireland to recuperate while staying with her family. She'd left - and then had changed her mind at the last moment.

Instead she'd come here in secret, sought his aid, hid in his apartment while her wounds had healed. She'd revealed to Father Donaldson, and no one else, her real location. He wouldn't speak of it, wouldn't judge her either. She'd said no one else needed to know.

It had been a very platonic four weeks, too often uncomfortable for him. He felt he had to be so careful, not just of her injuries but particularly of showing the right amount of interest in her, longtime friend and new lover, fiancé with a wedding date then yet to be set, now set for March 17 but _not _as beautiful and incredibly desirable woman. Recovering from abuse and rapes, sometimes he hadn't known how to behave with her. On advice of one of NCIS' therapists, he'd let her set the pace.

She and he had shared the apartment and, after some uncomfortable moments, the bed - but _nothing _more.

He'd been a cautious, meticulous gentleman for those weeks. He'd done nothing, made no advances nor taken any liberties while they'd been in this bed.

In that sense alone, it had been a _long _four weeks.

Shav had returned to the Rectory when she felt she was ready, but he'd insisted she keep the spare key. He thought she might need to use his place as a retreat. She'd said she wouldn't need to retreat any more.

Apparently, she'd been wrong.

x

"What did you want to tell me?"

"Well I - that is - I really wanted to ..." Her certainty deserts her. In her distress her brogue is particularly sharp. "Darn, would you believe I rehearsed every word? I never expected to fall asleep on your bed waiting for you."

He sits down in the brown easy chair he uses for reading, trying not to seem intimidating. Lately he tries that a lot. "Tell me."

She stands up, comes around to his side of the bed and sits facing him. "This isn't how I pictured it," she admits.

"Is it ever?" he asks with a smile.

"No. I've ..." She takes a deep breath, lets it out sharply. "I've been seeing a doctor."

x

He refrains from pointing out that, for the past month, she's been seeing two; her personal one for her physical injuries, and NCIS' psychiatrist for the horrors of her ordeal. One aspect of this problem is the return of the debilitating panic attacks that had begun when she'd narrowly avoided the explosion that had obliterated her apartment. That had been when _she'd _sheltered Abby Sciuto when the Scientist was being stalked by a then unknown assassin. Remarkable how things seem to happen in circles - or would this be spirals?

But Shav's tone tells him this doctor is neither for the body or the mind.

She removes her glasses, but he knows that without them she's blind. Her vision is so bad all she can see now is a foggy, indecipherable blur. This disability had been exploited during her captivity, had perhaps been the worst of it.

She'd never seen her assailant through three days of beatings, rapes and tortures. She could neither see if she was alone or about to be attacked. Too often, standing beside her in silence, he'd allowed her to believe she was alone and safe, then he'd assault her again.

x

But Tim's also so very aware that she uses the glasses as a way of stalling, of gaining time to think. He doesn't push her, gives her the time she needs.

"This doctor, no one knows I've been seeing him," she tells him, holding her hand over her right eye. He supposes she must feel considerable strain, but the strain she sparks in him is far different.

x

Always unable to look someone in the face and lie to him, Shav had long ago adopted an evasion; one that, to those who know her well, is not the secret she believes it to be. If she removes her glasses, perhaps to clean them, she's stalling while she thinks. But if she speaks to the person without the glasses, she's lying.

He knows that, blind as she is, she can't see how disappointed he is. He knows she's lying; but he doesn't understand what there is to lie about, and why she would lie to _him_.

x

"I've been seeing him for treatment for a while," she says, folding the glasses and setting them down on the mattress beside her. She can't see that she's also putting aside his heart. "I wasn't sure how to tell you yet."

"What kind of treatments?" he holds all tone from his voice. It's the hardest thing he can recall doing in weeks.

"Well ..."

His heart is sinking by the second. What is there to lie about? "Who is he?"

"Oh," she exclaims, "he has a card. It's in my purse, I'll get it."

She's up immediately, walks past him out the bedroom door. He's surprised at first by her sudden departure, but more so when he sees she's left her folded glasses on the bed. "Shav?"

He boosts himself out of the chair, snatches up the aids and hurries after her, certain she's going to injure herself in some mad demonstration of the impossible. He enters the large room and finds her by his writing desk, rummaging through the purse he realizes he'd been too fatigued to notice. "Shav?"

"It's here some - yes." She withdraws a small white card and crosses the room, smiling broadly. Stunned, he takes the card. Her right eye is closed, he searches her left, seeking a contact lens such as she'd never been able to wear. Legally blind, her vision is so bad no contact lens could make a difference. Finding no lens he knew wouldn't be there, he looks down at the card.

"Doctor Howard Persans, Ophthalmologist?" She points to a tiny word on the card's lower right. He looks up into her emerald eye. "Lasik?"

"Well, in my left eye. They only do one at a time." She covers the right one with her hand, her face relaxing. "They want to make sure one's good before they start on the other, but when they finish I'll have almost 20/20 vision."

x

He inspects the glasses in his hand, finds that though the right lens is as heavily contoured as ever, the left one a flat panel of glass. He realizes, belatedly, that she'd seen his face the entire time, that in her teasing nature she had probably not been able to resist ... He hands the glasses to her, she puts them on, opens her right eye.

"Until then, it's a little weird, seeing one eye clear and one a total blur, but soon I can throw away these things and aren't you going to say anything?"

"Er - why - I mean I know why, but why?"

"You mean all my life I accepted my fate and figured if God wanted me to have perfect vision He'd give me perfect vision so doing this was circumventing His will?"

"Well ... yeah."

x

She tries to force a smile, gives it up. "Charlie Morley almost killed me," she says dismally, knowing she'll never be free of the memory of those horrific days. "First this summer he used my priesthood, my sacred _vows_, to torture my soul while killing my friends. Then he exploited my weak eyes to torture my body. I'll never allow myself to go through that again."

She puts the card back into the purse, leans past him and sets it on his easy chair just beyond the bedroom door. He takes a step back and just that easily they're back in the bedroom.

"After a lot of soul-searching, I decided that what I'd thought was pious self-denial was nothing but selfish stupidity. _God _didn't call for me to be handicapped, I allowed myself to do that and it almost killed me. So I started the procedure and you should shut me up before this evolves into a Serm–"

She can't say more with his lips pressed to hers.

x

It always feels so good to Siobhan, their arms about one another, his body to hers, when he doesn't hold back. Now, finally, he's not being careful with her, not second guessing himself or worrying about her pain or fears. He's _finally _not holding back and she can put her arms about him and enjoy it.

His lips slipping slightly along hers do terrible things to her self-control. They're warm, and when the tip of her tongue touches his he tastes of pepperoni pizza and peppermint. The tingling scratchiness above and below those delicious lips reminds her - as if she needed reminding - that he's a man...

The joys he ignites make her pray for control as she longs to throw it away. In her imagination she sees all she longs to do but knows they both must hold back from, that they will hold back from. She tries, and doesn't want, to resist the temptation that batters her in the touch of his lips, in his body pressed to hers as they cling to one another, vision long forgotten.

She feels him holding his hands still about her and wishes he wouldn't. She knows she'll never give in, _he'll _never give in, not stop fighting himself, until they're married. She wants him to give in.

Oh, she could tempt him, and almost certainly win. She _wants _to tempt him. The month spent in this room had been an agony that had nothing to do with her wounds. She hadn't told him, knowing his own irresolvable frustrations would have been made worse by the knowledge.

x

Waiting for him to come home so she could surprise him with her news, she'd grown tired. She'd lain down to rest - for a few minutes - and remembers too vividly the dreams that laying in his bed again had inspired. She feels her face heat in an all-too-revealing blush and intensifies her kiss, hoping he won't notice her redness. She always blushes too easily, and with her Irish coloring, far too deeply.

Enjoying this kiss, this closeness, the press of his body to hers, the first true sensations spark, typically, in her breasts pressed against him. They hint at the promise of hours of ecstasy if only she'd give in to them or hours of unfulfilled longing if she doesn't.

She won't pull away.

Yes, she could give in to these dreams, these longings, so easily. Day by day she wants to more and more. But there's always the restraint, which neither can break through, spoiling it. He won't. She won't. She knows he wants to. She longs to with all her heart.

But the restraint won't let go of them. She won't be free of it – _he_ won't be free of it – until they're married.

Oh - but _when _they're married...!


	7. Not Cut and Dry

Chapter Seven  
Not Cut and Dry

At 0730 Gibbs walks into the bullpen, gratified to find his team hard at work. Now they had better have answers. "DiNozzo, Sky lied last night about not owning a gun. What did you find?"

"Nothing yet, boss. Are you sure - what am I saying? Of course you're sure."

"Find it."

"Palmer's digging up a search warrant," he says, hoping to divert attention.

When Gibbs looks at Michelle seated beyond McGee's desk, he doesn't like the trapped look in her eyes. "The minute you have it."

"Yes, sir," she says and picks up her phone, re-punches the extension for Legal.

"I'm looking into the possibility," McGee, seated between the targeted agents, reports, unhappy to draw Gibbs' attention, "that it might have been a hate crime." Even a very pleasant very late evening with his lovely fiancé can't balance the onslaught of an impatient and annoyed Leroy Jethro Gibbs. "Problem is, there are three large and vocal groups that I could choose from right now."

"Rampant hemophobia aside," Ziva interjects from across the bullpen, drawing Gibbs' aim before he can fire at McGee, "we should not discount the probability that Sky did murder Huston for the very motive she has confessed to."

"We're not discounting anything, Ziva," Gibbs admonishes, "and it's homophobia."

"So noted."

DiNozzo turns to her, reveling in his own brand of target practice. "As if an up-and-coming doctor is going to make it with hemophobia."

"I SAID–"

"_Focus_, people." Gibbs goes to his desk, trying to enforce a moment's quiet. He doesn't like relationships coming up on duty - unless it's the relationship between suspect and investigator. "Ziva, I want you on those hate groups. McGee, everything there is on Langley; friends, enemies, threats. A DI isn't out there to make friends."

x

In fact, Gibbs reflects as he reaches his desk, a Drill Instructor, focused on the specific dangers of a war zone, will often make him or herself vastly unpopular while trying to teach men and women how to stay alive in combat. They have to be much more demanding than their stateside, boot camp counterparts. Some people do not respond to the intent but to the act.

"Palmer, what did you find on Sky?"

Michelle chooses to take Gibbs' question literally. "When I brought her a change of clothes and collected what she was wearing, I saw bruises consistent with her explanation. Some were several days old. Jimmy says Huston's body had siilar bruising. Apparently they avoided each others' faces - actually I'm surprised they would - but they weren't as restrained with the rest."

"McGee, what about the school?"

"It's not even eight, boss, there's no one there ye–." He sees the warning glare just in time and reaches for the phone. "I'll put in another call."

"You do that."

"In the meantime," Michelle announces, stepping to his desk with three yellow message slips, "John Langley called three times on Gamma shift; once at 2:42, once at 4:28 and once at 6:13, demanding information on the murder of his wife."

"Hard to take being collateral damage in your own shower."

"He sent the agents assigned to remain with him away."

"And they _left_?"

She tries not to cringe. She used to cringe, far too often. "They said he was losing control, that they felt the only way to keep him from going over the edge was to give him some space."

"They were on _Suicide Watch_! Get them up here now."

"They're in Beta shift, they're–," she catches the fire in his eyes just in time. "I'll call them and get them back in." She retreats to her desk, grateful for every foot.

"What do we have on Staff Sergeant Langley?" The agents make the mistake of answering with silence. "What - do - we - HAVE - on - Staff - _Sergeant _- LANGLEY?"

The demand ignites a blaze of activity.

"Enlisted four and a half years ago," DiNozzo answers quickly. "She spent a year in Kabul, then a year bouncing all around 'our' parts of Iraq, been back in Afghanistan ever since–"

"Seventeen months as a Drill Instructor," McGee cuts in. "She was promoted to Staff this past October. Her hitch, she's six years in, is up in July."

"She is three weeks into a month's furlough," Ziva reports when McGee takes a breath, "due to return to her unit next Tuesday."

"Anyone from her unit also on Leave?"

"Still checking," DiNozzo replies. "It's about 1500 out there, I should have an answer sssss – I'll go up to MTAC and get one now."

"Yes, you will." He raises his voice to take in all of them. "The next time Staff Sergeant Langley's husband calls for answers, I want to give him some." He picks up his coffee cup. "I'll be with Ducky."

"Sir?"

"What is it, Palmer?"

"Legal just uploaded the warrant to search Sky and Huston's apartment for the gun you–"

"You and McGee."

xxx

Jennifer Shepherd glares at the papers in the file folder in her hand and wishes that, a month ago, she'd given the proposer of this nonsense a definite 'no'. Instead, overburdened by the pressures of what has come to be known as 'the Millennium Debacle', she'd empowered her assistant Cynthia Sumner, at the woman's best judgment, to nix or arrange the deal. Cynthia had chosen to approve it and had referred the request to Public Relations.

PR, of course, thought the proposal was a wonderful way of promoting NCIS. Jennifer, burdened with another matter, hadn't cared one way or another when it had crossed her desk. She'd signed the authorization. The deal is made, she must live with it.

She throws the folder down on the desk, wishes she could throw the signed deal away as easily. 'We' magazine has conceived the promotional story 'Women of NCIS'. Why, Shepherd still doesn't know, but the scheme includes fifteen plus pages with photos. Okay, it will be good for NCIS but the timing - the beginning of next week - stinks.

She'd had Cynthia put out a memo; agents are free to accept or decline interviews at will. As Director, she doesn't have the luxury. She does, however, have a desk full of work. Putting that file folder out of her mind, she picks up the next one.

xxx

Reverend Siobhan O'Mallory had been uncertain about this return to 'Enkiss' this morning. On the one hand, she'd looked forward to it and enjoys seeing her friends. On the other, a month's sabbatical doesn't seem enough. Or is it too much? She still can't decide.

She'd greeted several friends as she entered the building and headed to the elevator to her fourth floor office, encountered still more on this floor.

Their welcomes had been equally enthusiastic. These men and women had worked hard in finding her when she'd been kidnapped, deeply offended at the brutal treatment of 'one of their own'. This is the first time most of them have had to greet her and catch up on a hundred questions and expressions of concern. The reunions are emotional; she tries hard to keep most of her feelings behind a placid mask. She's deeply touched by their greetings and their concern, so much so that if it went on much longer she felt she was going to cry.

She does not cry in public.

By the time she unlocks the door to her office, with a sense of relief she's not even sure she wants, she's been in the building for 45 minutes.

She pushes open the door to the room, longer than it is wide, with a sense of homecoming and relief. She'll be able to put off her long white coat, sit down as her desk facing the far wall and just think - before she must turn her attention to a month's worth of unheard messages.

The room is effective in its stark simplicity. Beyond the desk against the far wall there's a comfortable couch to her right and three file cabinets to her left. That's all; nothing to give a visitor the impression her attention is on anything but him or her - and the tall vase filled with white flowers that stands in the center of her desk.

She approaches the silver vase, the snowstorm offset by a single baby blue morning glory just right of center.

There's no card, there doesn't need to be. Siobhan pushes her glasses up to wipe away the tears.

xx

When Gibbs strides through the sliding doors to Autopsy, Ducky and Jimmy explore the open chest of Staff Sergeant Wendy Langley. "What can you tell me, Duck?"

"Well, about what, specifically?" he asks, not looking back. His voice is distorted by the plastic shield covering his face.

"Let's start with Langley."

"Good choice, considering she's here, which is more than I shall shortly be able to say for Miss Huston."

"City coming for her soon?"

"Soon enough and too soon, she's already cleared the front gate. Though I shan't mind seeing Jordan Hampton again, it shall be something of a mixed blessing."

"Make the best of it."

"I assure you, I shall." His opportunities to see the woman are too few and much too far between, barely twice in any week, though she'd only been here in Autopsy three times and he to her autopsy suite once. Normally he meets her in far more imaginative, significant locations.

"In the meantime, to our Staff Sergeant," Ducky says, waving his hand demonstratively over the corpse. "The Cause of Death, as you have no doubt surmised, was indeed the high velocity impact of a Teflon-coated, metal jacketed .308 caliber rifle projectile. The cuts inflicted by the broken glass, though numerous and quite bloody, were on the whole superficial and did not markedly contribute to the young lady's death. Mr. Palmer, would you be so good as to continue?"

"Of course, Doctor."

Jimmy strips off his gloves, tosses them into the waste disposal bin at the head of the table. He then removes his shielded headwear and leads Gibbs to the lighted panels, to which several x-ray films are attached.

"The bullet came through the wall and hit her on her right side between the 7th and 8th ribs. We can tell by the damage that her arms were raised over her head at that moment."

"Why?"

"Maybe she was shampooing?"

Gibbs steps in. "Are you asking me?"

"We believe she was shampooing her hair when she was shot." Jimmy glances at Ducky in time to see the look of satisfaction on his mentor's face. It's gone in an instant, but he'd caught it.

"What else have you got?" Gibbs asks.

"Well, we found these granular fragments, a little smaller than sand." He points to the expanding field of tiny white dots on the film. They radiate from the entry wound, about six inches into her. "They're from the sheetrock and tiles, knocked along by the bullet because of its high speed.

"Normally we usually see tiny particles spreading in a scattershot pattern from the wound in regular bullets where the outer shell is sheared off. Since this was a full metal jacket round, there was no sheering. This time the effect mimics regular bullet, but it's from the wall."

"Cause a lot of bleeding?"

Jimmy turns to him. "They didn't help."

x

Gibbs' next question is interrupted by the opening of the main doors. A brunette woman wearing a white medical smock under her open brown coat steps in. "Excuse me, is this 'Slice and Dice'?"

"No, ma'am," Jimmy replies with a grin, "this is 'Cut and Dry'."

"Ah, mortuary humor," Ducky says broadly from beside the silver table, "there's nothing like it."

"Grateful for that," Gibbs says. "Could be worse, she could've asked for the 'duck pond'."

"Oh, I did that last time."

"Hello, Doctor Hampton."

"Good morning, Jimmy." She favors the other man with a special smile. "Ducky."

"I suppose you're here for the body of Karen Huston?" Ducky says, keeping his tone to business in Gibbs' presence, wishing this brief visit from his good friend were not quite so public. It's all in the timing, he reflects. The main gate had called 'Pass and Identification' when she'd arrived; PID had obtained clearance from him and it's just luck that Jethro is here when she arrives. Jimmy is far easier to send away.

x

"Actually, I was hoping I could simply borrow a spare table?"

"Oh?" This is an unexpected but not unwelcome request.

"I'm up to my ears in bodies. It'll take less time out of my day if I do the autopsy here and bring in my results."

"Is that legal?" Gibbs is sure Carpenter will have some choice words, not that he cares.

Hampton's smile is devastating. "I can conduct an autopsy in whatever location I see fit," she glances past Gibbs to Ducky, "and I can hardly complain about the company."

"Fine with me," Gibbs assures her. "This way I get the results faster."

"This way you get them this week, you mean. I wasn't kidding when I said I was up to my ears."

"Wish Carpenter was as accommodating." He decides to leave the three Examiners to work out their resources. While they seek answers in blood and gore, he'll seek a large coffee.


	8. Sleeping with the Enemy

Chapter Eight  
Sleeping with the Enemy

Tim McGee and Michelle Palmer, each carrying a black Evidence bag, push through the glass door into the lobby of the Hampton Arms. At the desk to their left they find a different black uniformed officer than the one they'd met yesterday. They display their IDs, explain their purpose.

"I heard what happened yesterday," the grey haired man says as he presents a bound book for them to sign. "Real pity."

"You don't seem surprised," McGee observes as he registers both their names.

"We're not. Oh, we're surprised about 9F, the Langleys. When I heard about it, two dead, I thought at first the pair in J had killed each other."

Tim considers this too close to likely for comfort. "Why is that?" He's here to get answers, not necessarily to give them. He knows the man would normally be reticent so he stresses again that they're Federal Officers investigating the deaths.

"We've had several complaints about them - the women in J - over the past few weeks. The incidents just seemed to start. Sometimes tenants would call; a couple of times they'd call Metro and we'd find out something was wrong when a unit rolled up. We didn't like that, makes us look like we're not on our toes when the boys come and we have to say 'why are you here?'"

"Guess that's a bit awkward."

Grey hair shakes his head. "I'm retired from the job, so I was on the other side of plenty of roll-ups. But the younger guys took it personally, not that you can do a thing about it."

"I guess not."

x

Michelle Palmer, not wanting to be left out of the conversation, takes a half-step before her towering partner. "What happened the times you were called?"

The man smiles slightly, keeping a professional mien while showing he has no objection to transferring his focus to a beautiful woman. "We'd send an officer upstairs, see what's going on," he says, his tone and smile making plain that he wasn't ignoring her. In fact, he'd noticed her before her much larger partner.

"There's always two of us on duty, one in the office or doing vertical patrols, one out here. We switch off. Not a lot happened up there on the eight to sixteen, it was mostly sixteen hundred to zero. A few times on the zero to eight; that's when we'd get multiple complaints. The walls are pretty thin, no one likes being woken up."

"What would happen if the officer had to go up?" she continues, taking more note of the thinness of the walls. Several of the earwitnesses they'd interviewed yesterday had born that out, though no one other than an old woman who was presumably hard of hearing had been specific about what they'd heard.

"He'd talk to them, but could only do that if he heard anything when he got there. He'd ask them to keep it down or the police could be called. That's SOP for noise complaints. If it happened too often, Management would send a letter. They may have already sent one, I wouldn't know. We have a lot of tenants who've been here a long time; they like to throw their weight around." His tone tells them his opinion of such tenants. The agents share it.

"Anyway, if the officer didn't hear anything, he'd ring the bell, ask if everything's all right. If he saw nothing and they said everything's fine, there's not a lot he can do. Can't force our way in. We'd log the complaint as unfounded."

"May we see the log?" Michelle asks.

"I guess so. Can't stop you from reading, after all." His tone, as he pulls out another bound book, implies that more than that might require a warrant. He doesn't say so, however. There's also no point in delaying the reading of something that'll be read two hours from now when said warrant was procured.

Among two Federal Agents - she a legal specialist - and a former MPDC officer, it's nice for there to be no need for translations.

x

Starting on a date over three weeks ago, the agents read a number of entries for 9J, and these steadily increase in frequency. The percentage of 'founded' incidents also steadily increases.

They'll check later with MPDC about the details of the direct calls.

"Thank you. We'll go up now," McGee says. "We may have more questions when we get back."

"I'll be here."

xx

When they get off the elevator McGee and Palmer greet their fellow agent and the Metro PD officer on guard. In answer to Tim's question about problems, Agent Lagres tells him: "Not unless you count reporters."

"A lot of them?"

"All the time. We didn't answer them but we couldn't stop them from asking questions. They stayed away from F and J, showed restraint with F, but they interviewed everyone else on the floor."

Tim has no doubt they'll get hold of Langley in 9F sooner rather than later, certainly when no one's around to hinder them. He's not concerned, everyone on this floor willing to talk to them already has. "Well, even Moses had problems with locusts," he tells Lagres.

"Yeah," the Field Agent says disgustedly, "but he sent for them."

x

When the agents turn toward the left corridor, carrying their Evidence bags, they're called back.

"Sir, ma'am," the police officer says differentially, "I know this is a joint investigation, but Lieutenant Carpenter wants a record of who uses the civilian scene. No offense."

"None taken, officer." McGee signs, dates and records the time on the log, hands back the clipboard. He doesn't ask if his fellow agent has been as diligent, letting his eyes convey what lips do not. Satisfied with the silent confirmation, he allows Michelle to precede him down the hall.

Though he _is _getting married soon, this last has never been a difficult choice.

x

Sky and Huston's dark brown door is easy to find by the yellow 'Crime Scene' tape that crisscrosses it. This isn't the same door that'd been there last evening. That original one had been removed by Forensics and is safely ensconced in NCIS' 'Evidence Holding'. This door is considerably older, probably brought up from leftover storage in some part of the basement. The paint is long faded, the less faded portion over the peephole reads 12C.

Fine blood spatter had been found on the edge of the original door. The tiny horizontal droplets on the outer side have been confirmed by Abby as being high velocity blowback of Karen Huston's blood.

"If she was shot from out here, blood droplets should be all over Sky's clothes."

"Someone's clothes," McGee reminds her.

"Yes, sir." She remembers she hadn't seen anything on the young woman when she'd seen her here yesterday or when she'd collected Sky's clothes from her in Holding. Of course, that means little. "But if she changed, where did–?"

"You're forgetting the IGSR."

"Of course," she admits, withholding the fact that, though she hadn't been present for the Instant Gunshot Residue test, she _had _forgotten reading about it in his report this morning. Not only did the test McGee had performed last evening indicate that Sky's hands and coat were free of the nearly microscopic particles, but Abby has the clothes Sky had worn and is subjecting them to much more rigorous testing.

"Abby says that what spray there was on the door was very elongated, except for the edge." Michelle reminds him in an effort to cover her lapse. "The door must've been almost lined up with her body."

"Yep." McGee fishes out a tagged key obtained last night from the very disconcerted building manager, unlocks this substitute and they duck under the tape.

x

The living room floor is covered with huge expanses of clear plastic to protect the blood that has spattered throughout it. Through the plastic they can see the large stain in, and the outline of Huston's body that had been drawn on, the forest green carpet.

They set their black satchels down on the plastic covering just within the room, open them and from cardboard dispenser boxes pull on latex gloves, large and small.

Metro CSI had done a first day's work but this apartment will take more than an evening to examine. Tim and Michelle have access because this is a joint investigation, and NCIS has more room at the moment to store evidence. Where Metro PD has many cases on which to work, NCIS has few, really only enough to keep a half-dozen teams busy, excluding, of course, the throng of agents who still labor to unravel the Millennium debacle.

Therefore the door and some little evidence from this apartment are in NCIS' custody, but because their own official Crime Scene is on the other side of the far wal, they can't forget Metro's primacy in these rooms. Anything they find must immediately be shared with Detective Lt. Jeffery Carpenter and his colleagues.

The agents take a moment to survey the room, to take in the scene as a whole before starting to inspect details. Michelle had never made it into this apartment last evening, her investigation having been focused on the death site of Staff Sergeant Wendy Langley. From here, through the open bathroom door, she can see the metal jacketed rifle bullet's entry hole in the bathroom shower wall far before her.

Last evening MPDC CSI had done the honors in stretching the red cord back from the storage case of records through the holes in the other apartment's bathroom door and the wall between the shower tubs and out the door of this apartment. After taking their measurements, they'd then set up a temporary stand just within the room to hold the red cord in place behind the closed door. Allowing for loss of velocity with each impact, the muzzle of the gun had been between three and three quarters and four and a fifth feet from the floor.

One theory put this elbow high to an average person, a contrasting theory put it about shoulder high to Sky. Unfortunately, there were too many impacts to narrow the height variance more definitely than that 4.5 inch range.

x

"Do you think Sammy did it, Ssss Tim?"

McGee holds back a smile. Michelle is still practicing calling him by name alone rather than including the honorific. She'd always been so formal, but since their shared ordeal months ago, she manages better with him than with 'Don't-call-me-sir' Gibbs.

'An investigation isn't a poll,' he thinks, but in answer to her question says: "Ducky doesn't, of course. Zee does." They split up to search opposite halves of the room, looking wherever a gun can reasonably - or unreasonably - be hidden. "Gibbs, naturally, will never say. Tony, well ..." He isn't sure what the Senior Field Agent has or hasn't concluded.

"When it comes to beautiful women," Michelle says, bitterness flavoring her tone, "Special Agent DiNozzo thinks with his little head."

"Not always," Tim counters, feeling he should at least defend the man a little.

She looks back to him, says archly: "You don't spend a lot of time chatting in the Ladies' room."

"Not a lot, no," he admits and tries to restrain an all-too-revealing blush, suspecting that she'd intended to elicit it. He wonders if he should start spending such time - if he wants a really _good _head slap. "What about Jimmy? What does he think?"

"He won't say," she tells him from across the room, pausing in her search of a closet. "He barely knows her. They met only three times; our wedding, the Christmas Pageant and the New Year's party. _That _was the longest time he'd spent with her."

"Well, what about you?" He opens a cabinet under the television, finding stacks of DVDs. "What do those finely honed Wiccan senses tell you?"

x

The silence is so long that he looks back.

She's staring at him, her hand on the open closet door. "That for a moment you were channeling Agent DiNozzo," she tells him frigidly.

He straightens, embarrassed by her anger. "I'm sorry, I–"

"It doesn't work like that." Her tone is even more Arctic. He doesn't need to know, in addition to this practical limitation, that after her return to Field duty she'd also taken an oath never to use her supernormal gifts to 'shortcut' a case.  
"I'm sorry. I just meant 'could you sense anything'?"

"_Yes_."

"What?"

"That Special Agent Gibbs would slap me in the back of the head if I relied on them in an investigation."

"Gibbs never slaps you."

"He _used _to."

"But not any more, not in months. Tony's always wondering why."

"_Let him_." She leaves the closet, snatches her evidence bag and, despite procedure, walks into the bedroom to search it alone.

Tim looks after her, wondering what nerve he'd struck.

x

Michelle closes the bedroom door and stands still, working to force her anger down. She's not mad at Tim, she's mad at Agent DiNozzo and he's not here to confront. As usual, the man's inquisitiveness about things that are none of his business grates upon her.

What happened between herself and Special Agent Gibbs on that tempestuous day when she'd been Abby's bodyguard is between them. The story has never leaked out of Legal, a.k.a. Ground Zero, possibly more because of her former colleagues' caution about Gibbs than their regard for her. One pisses off the Deputy Special Agent-in-Charge at one's own peril.

x

Her Wiccan practices are even more private than are the events that had led to her restoration to Gibbs' team. There are some depths of knowledge she doesn't share with anyone except Jimmy.

Anything she might sense, usually through those talents DiNozzo would speculate so blithely upon, would be inadmissible in court. But, like Gibbs' gut hunches, she knows when to let things guide her - privately.

Now, behind a closed door, and probably because she's so angry, she decides to try.

She doesn't consider that angry is not the best mood to be in when opening herself to the Infinite, to the realm of the Goddess.

x

Unless she drops them, her psychic shields are up twenty-four-seven, protecting her from impressions that can be maddening. Without those shields, she is subject to far more than she ever cares to experience. This has less to do with Wicca than with internal things that lessons in magic have taught her how to manage.

While in no sense is it clairvoyance - or anything else Anthony DiNozzo would so glibly speculate on - she is sensitive, measurably psychic. Wicca has taught her how to _control _those innate talents, and when she needs to, to defend herself against them.

Now she relaxes and allows herself to feel.

x

Anger. Rage. She cringes at the bursts of mindless hate that cover the room like layers of haphazardly thrown paint.

They don't beat down on her the way active emotions from someone standing right here would, but they cover her like a smothering blanket of pure - or rather impure - hate.

Suffering under the onslaught, she tries to physically and psychically push away. She quickly resumes her defenses, reflecting that this is another reason, in addition to her oath, why she relies on the physical in doing this job.

It was also, she admits, a bad idea to be charged with her own anger when opening herself to her surroundings. She'd directed her own sensitivity. Clear and telling though the sensations were, unpleasant though they certainly were, her methodology had made them less than useful.

But she can't dispel what she'd felt. It was real. The faint scents of perfumes that linger in the air, barely discernable as a hint of what might have been in some happier times, do nothing to mask the psychic stink of hate.

x

There's a king-size bed in the room. It's already been stripped. Everything that had been on it is now secured by Forensics either in the Evidence lock-up at Metro or at NCIS or is already in Abby's lab. The bed, in time, will follow if it's considered necessary. Michelle suspects that'll thrill Abby and the people in Evidence Storage.

Beside the desk to her left, upon which the report had said a Dell laptop had rested, is a large garbage pail. She lifts the lid.

"Bingo. You couldn't take everything at once, could you?" she tells the team that had preceded her, half grateful, half annoyed. "Likely never looked in _here_, did you, before calling it a night?"

She finds two clumps of hair resting under several crumpled papers; one set brunette, the longer ones pale blonde. She uses a set of tweezers to take the masses out. Holding each set in turn to the light, she's able to see that some of the hairs contain roots. 'These should help Abby confirm the obvious,' she thinks, reaching for the first of two plastic evidence bags.

She looks around the spacious room, easily able to imagine hair-pulling, rolling tussles. One at a time she puts each clump into the plasrtic bags, seals them and fills in the evidence data.

She puts these into her black satchel and logs all the data into her notebook. She already has her copies of the Crime Scene sketches and photos which Agent DiNozzo made last evening. She marks the location of the pail and then investigates further.

Under more crumpled papers she finds a light blue cloth. Pulling it out reveals it to be a tee-shirt, size small adult. On it three fluffy white kittens wrestle a red ball of yarn larger than any two of them. A colorful glittering banner spread above proclaims 'Kittens Are God's Purrfect Gift.'

The left side of the collar is torn halfway down to the short sleeve. A dry trail of dark brown drops aligns down the middle from a few inches below the collar to the hem.

Michelle turns to the full length mirror beside the door, holds the garment several inches before her body. Sammy and she are approximately the same build, though Sammy is more 'generously endowed', and she can picture the shirt hugging the woman to eye-catching advantage. The drops of blood near the top are round or ovoid, the lower ones elongated. There's also a short smear on the inside, near the collar. "_Tim_?"

When he opens the door she's still displaying the bloody shirt. Then she holds up the bags with the tufts of hair.

McGee looks from them to the only bed. Beyond the couch in the living room, this is probably a frequently and hotly contested scene of battle. "Talk about 'sleeping with the enemy'."

x

After fifteen minutes of meticulous searching of each half of the bedroom, working again as a proper team, Tim reaches the closet to the left of the door. He opens it, turns on the light, looks up to the upper shelf and calls: "Found it."

He waits for Michelle to take several pictures with the large digital camera, then has to stretch to pull the small box, the edge of which had been visible from under a stack of folded clothes. Though he feels the weight of the square red and white box, he anticipates being disappointed. The weight is too evenly distributed and there is no way the weapon depicted on the cover fired a .308 bullet. Several more pictures, then he lifts the lid.

Packed as though it has just left the store, plastic cover stretched unbroken above the contents, is a Baretta 21 Bobcat Semi-Auto Pistol. The black weapon is small, less than five inches long, the barrel just two and a half, perfect for a small hand. Beside the gun is the magazine which, according to the print on the box, accepts seven .22LR bullets. Also under the plastic is a box of said ammunition.

"Recently fired?" Michelle asks sweetly.

He closes the lid.

xxx

Abby turns from her comparison microscope when she hears Gibbs enter the silent room. Normally it's easier to hear the seasons change or the sun set than to hear Gibbs but this time, with her ubiquitous music turned off, she manages it. It's the only good thing she can find in the entire day.

"What've you got, Abs?"

"A whole crapload of crap," she says, her voice flat, dismal.

"All right." He hands her a 'Caf-Pow!', hoping it'll cheer her up. It doesn't.

"Thanks."

"No music?" He must occasionally yell for her to turn the rock garbage down.

"Don't feel like it," she says in the same maudlin tones. She puts the cup down without sipping any of her favorite drink, which for Gibbs is telling enough. "An hour ago McGee and Palmer brought me the fruits of their investigation into Crime Scene A and can I see her?"

"No, so stop asking."

"No. Anyhow, they brought me a load of stuff."

"I know."

"Of course you know; you're Gibbs. Anyway, the gun was never unpacked, factory sealed, looks like she got it and just put it up on a shelf and forgot about it. Michelle says she'd've needed a stepladder or something to reach it and that there's none in the apartment."

He'd reached the same conclusions. Huston was tall enough, which introduces some disquieting considerations about the gun. He'd accused Sky of lying about having a gun. What if she'd been telling the truth and the weapon was Huston's? "What else?"

Abby waves an arm at the table and her tone is no more enthused than the gesture. "Bloody and or torn clothes in two sizes; hair, blonde and brunette. I haven't had time to do more than start matching and when can I see her?"

"Let me know when you've confirmed all the blood and hair is theirs and you can't." He walks away.

"Anyone ever tell you you're mean?" she calls.

"Not since Saturday." The door closes.

xxx

Gibbs has taken a few minutes to grab some early lunch in the cafeteria, certain this is going to be a full, demanding day. When he gets off the elevator he almost collides with McGee.

"Boss, I'm glad I found you."

"Yeah, McGee, you almost found a shirt full of coffee. Now, what've you got?"

"Oh, Detective Lieutenant Carpenter is here."

"Why?"

"Er, I figured he'd tell you?"

"Then what're you standing here for?" He pushes past, strides down to the bullpen, the flustered agent in his wake. The trench-coated Metro Homicide Detective waits by his desk.

"Nickis came in second this time, LeeJay," Carpenter announces with vast satisfaction. "Guess what my people found in a dumpster behind the Eighteenth Street Lounge over on M."

There's no need to guess. On Gibbs' desk lies a square yard of clear plastic, and upon that, a Winchester .308 Magnum rifle.


	9. Winchester

Chapter Nine  
Winchester

"Looks brand new," Lieutenant Jeffery Carpenter confirms as he and the five agents inspect the sleek, powerful rifle set upon the plastic wrapping on Gibbs' desk. The scent of fresh gun oil bears out this evaluation. "I'm only lending this to you, LeeJay, because Ballistics is backed up and you already have the bullet. But I'm keeping it in Metro's custody, so where it goes, I go."

"Hope you like Goths."

"Hate 'em," he says, the plastic crinkling loudly as he rewraps and picks up the weapon.

"Then you're in for some time."

"I do like Abby, however," he says, cradling the rifle in one arm like a hunter. An exceptionally loud hunter.

"I won't tell Cathy. Palmer, escort the good policeman into the lion's den."

"This way to the den, Detective." She adds a little fun sway to her hips as she leads the tall man away.

x

As they depart, Gibbs moves around his desk and sits down, looks up at his team still standing before him. "_Someone _had better be running that registration!"

"Running it," McGee assures him, heading for his desk.

"On it, Boss." Tony is not about to be outdone.

Ziva is moving out as well. "Coming up in–"

"HEY!" Too many is as bad as none. "McGee, registration. DiNozzo, Langley's enemies, if any. Ziva, what about those hate groups?"

"I am still checking on the three most vocal _homo_phobe groups active in Washington. As expected, they are a gaggle of extremists."

"Gaggle?"

"Extremists frequently sound like geese. Apparently they have little central organization, which will make tracing the activities of their members that much harder."

"As soon as McGee has the owner of that gun, match it with the names you dig up."

xx

Michelle returns to her desk a few minutes later. Sensing the intensity in the room, she does so very quietly.

"Uh, boss?" Tim speaks up. No one thinks he sounds happy.

"What is it, McGee?"

"I have the data on the rifle. It was purchased just two weeks ago, on the 6th, from Singh Tsong Sporting in Seven Corners, Virginia."

"Sing Song?" Ziva asks. "What kind of name is that for a gun dealer?"

He spells it.

"Good work, McGee; you and Ziva–"

"No, boss, not good. Bad. The rifle's registered to Samantha Sky."

x

Gibbs hides his disappointment. It's easy, he has more than enough annoyance to balance it. Despite the insistence of his gut, he'd hoped that she'd told the truth when she'd sworn she didn't own a gun. They've now collected two.

"This is going to break Ducky's heart," McGee mutters as he gathers his equipment from his desk drawer.

"_HEY_!" Gibbs' sharp tone halts everyone. "I don't care about hearts. We have two dead women and our suspect in Holding. I want the answers as soon as you hear them."

"Yes, sir."

As Tim and Ziva gather their equipment, Tony warbles; "Sing, sing a song. Sing out loud, sing out–" Ziva hits him with a crumpled paper ball.

"DiNozzo, you're with me."

"Where to, boss?"

"Langley's. Something doesn't feel right."

"Something?" Michelle mutters. About this case, nothing feels right.

"On your six, boss."

"What about me?" Michelle calls.

"Get on the line to her Unit. Before we leave I want to know what they can tell us about Langley's marriage."

xxx

Singh Tsong Sporting is one of a strip of unremarkable white stores laid out 'cookie-cutter' fashion, with only their contents offering any distinction. The plate glass window fronting the agents' target is devoted to hunting; a mannequin in camouflage clothing, with rifles, tent and camp supplies, surrounds a mock campfire.

As Tim and Ziva push open the front door, a small bell ringing over their heads, they are inundated by a vast collection of outerwear and equipment.

"Can I help you?" a tall blonde woman of about thirty years asks from behind a glass counter. Behind her stand a variety of rifles, all secured by a length of chain. "Hunting?"

"What makes you think that?" Tim asks as they approach the counter.

The woman, wearing a red flannel hunting shirt, points to their identical black badge coats and white lettered hats.

"NCIS, that means you're hunters. There's all sorts of big game. Unless, of course, you're here asking questions, in which case you're fishers." Her accent is classic Dallas. Neither agent thinks of classifying her as Houston.

"We are looking for specific prey," Ziva replies, "which makes us trappers."

"Very good." The woman may have taken a cursory glance at Ziva, but they can see she only has eyes for Tim. "How can I help you?"

Willing to play to her interest, Ziva takes a figurative step back so McGee can stand in the saleswoman's spotlight.

"I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you're neither Singh or Tsong," Tim says.

"I'm Zang."

He winces at her devastating repost. "Ohhh-_kay_." He has the feeling he's walked into one of DiNozzo's movies, and standing at an angle to the women he can see that Ziva, half a step behind him, is not amused. "How does this happen?"

"Pretty easy. About six months ago I answered their 'Help Wanted' sign in the window. When I introduced myself Singh said to Tsong 'we _have _to hire her'. So here I am."

Ziva is determined to get beyond the banter. "We are looking for someone who purchased a rifle here recently."

"It's hunting season. I'm glad to say I sell a lot."

"And you keep records?"

Her light dims. "Of course," her voice flattens. "Very precise records."

"I did not mean to imply otherwise."

Zang gives Tim better than her very best customer smile, her manner to Ziva saying 'yes you did'. "What can I help _you _with?"

"We're looking for someone who bought a .308 Winchester Magnum, say within the past three weeks?"

"I can look you up," her smile punctuates her point.

"We need to look at your records," Ziva cuts in.

Zane's smile vanishes again. "Do you now?"

Tim can see that, for whatever reason, the situation is going to dissolve, possibly to the warrant and lawyer stage. Remembering Gibbs' Rule 13, 'Never ever involve lawyers', he sidesteps in front of Ziva.

"Miss...?"

"Colette." She shuts Ziva out, again, focuses on Tim.

"Colette, we'd like you to look at some pictures, see if you recognize anyone as a possible customer."

Zang considers for a few seconds. "I guess I can do that."

x

He spreads on the counter a row of photos of blonde, blue eyed women in their mid-20's. Mingled among them is Sammy Sky's photo from when she worked at NCIS. Her hair in the photo is shorter than its present length.

As soon as Tim sets the last one down, Zang goes directly to the fourth. "Her. She was here a couple of weeks ago."

"You're sure?"

"Fella, I'm sure. I remember she was _really _determined. She wanted the rifle as quickly as possible, said she was hunting some really big game."

"She did not take the gun right away?" Ziva demands.

Zane's sales friendliness is exhausted. "You can't _walk into_ a store in Virginia and walk out with a firearm, lady, unless maybe you're a Fed. But I've never had a Fed so no one's pressed the issue. There's a mandatory Waiting Period while you're checked."

"We know."

"You wanted to see if _I _kn–"

"Miss, getting back to the customer," McGee stresses, wondering why it suddenly seems he has to lock his partner in a cage, "we only care about who bought the rifle and when."

Zane shrugs, makes a show of tuning Ziva out for a third time. She opens a drawer, pulls out a ring binder. It's filled with sets of ATF forms; three color paper white, yellow and, on the unused ones, pink. She selects the last used carbonless set and works back through the white and yellows.

x

She stops five sets back. "Here it is, two weeks ago Tuesday, February 6. Samantha Sky bought a .308 Winchester Magnum rifle, serial number 434701084. Paid cash. I shipped it UPS the following Monday, the 12th, to Hampton Arms, 1220 Nineteenth Street Northwest, 9J, DC."

"She paid you in cash?" Ziva snaps.

Zane ignores her, but tells McGee: "A lot of my customers pay cash, even for guns. They don't _get _them until they're checked out and the registry goes through. I keep to the rules and I don't have problems."

"So far."

Zane slaps her hand down on the counter. "All right, lady, that's about all I'm–!"

"Mind if we take that?" Tim asks quickly.

Zang makes an evident effort to push aside her anger, once again shuts Ziva out. "If I say 'yes', are you going to come straight back here with a subpoena?"

"Yep."

She glances at the dark woman; Tim thinks she's wondering if it's worth the risk to have him come back. "You'll probably leave her here to make sure I don't do anything funny."

"Probably." Tim had had no intention of doing so; the penalties for defacing or removing the papers being enough deterrent, but he sees no reason to disillusion the woman.  
Zane gestures a 'giving' sign. Tim signs the lower right corner of the carbonless page, notes the date and time, then takes the yellow sheet.

x

"Zee, what was with you?" he demands as soon as they are out the door. The woman can be aggressive, sometimes overly so; but considering the 'opposition', this display was over the top. He knows she doesn't like blondes; for a time he'd thought that was the reason for her continuing antipathy toward Sky, but–

"I do not like it when someone I trusted betrays that trust to commit murder."

He's sorry that things worked out as they had. "Me neither."

"Plus Zang wanted to sleep with you."

"Really?" He turns back and misses Ziva's swing at his shoulder, the impact jars him. He turns back, angry. "What was _that _for?"

"You are getting married, McGee."

"It's not–" Her upraised finger is a sword, but he doesn't feel like dueling with his former love. Instead he goes to the car, but stops at it, makes no move to enter.

"What is the matter?"

"Sammy. She's a bright girl–"

"_Girl_?"

"Woman." He doesn't want to get into that now, he's too annoyed. Until now he'd been certain. Now even less makes sense to him, and Zee's switching from anger against Sky's seeming betrayal to upholding her, at least as a woman, is not the least of the craziness. "But she came to Virginia, paid cash, then _signed _the sales book and had it shipped straight home."

"You are not thinking like a woman driven to a murderous rage."

"Well, you certainly are." He ignores her glare, he's had worse from Gibbs, and he has his own reasons to glare.

"Gibbs will eat her alive when he sees this paper," she says.

"Probably."

"I want to be there to see it."

Tim opens the car door. "I don't."

xxx

Gibbs knocks on the door of apartment 9F. The MTAC video conference had been a sheer waste of time, no one they spoke to had any intimate details on Langley's marriage, good or bad. All the conference had done was make him late; it's nearing noon before they make it to Langley's apartment.

The apartment, he and DiNozzo know, had been stripped of everything that could conceivably have a bearing on Wendy Langley's death. That, and the fact that this is a secondary Crime Scene, is the only reason that John Langley is here rather than being set up in some hotel.

Gibbs hadn't liked him staying here, stripped scene or no, but the law is specific and he can't be forced off what is essentially the scene of an accident. He'd assigned Agents to stay with Langley, and still plans to deal with the men who had allowed that provision to fail.

It's several moments before the door opens. The man on the other side seems to have aged a year for every hour that's passed since yesterday afternoon's murders. Gibbs had been angry that Langley had sent the Agents he'd assigned away last night. They hadn't wanted to leave, but their presence was pushing Langley further and further out of control. They'd left, reluctantly, because to stay was worse than to go.

When Gibbs sees what they'd left behind, he determines that instead of chewing the men up he'll nail their skins to the wall.

x

"Whaa?" The bleary word wafts outward on an indistinguishable collection of alcohols.

"Mister Langley?" Gibbs pulls out his ID, doubting the man can focus on it. "Special Agents Gibbs and DiNozzo, NCIS."

"Copssss?" he asks, blinking eyes heavy with sleep and more. Gibbs is half inclined to give up, but he'll make the attempt. He has his doubts that he'll get much, and even more doubts about the usefulness - or admissibility of what he does get - but if Langley should be willing to talk he'll listen and try to interpret.

"May we come in?"

Langley tries to think this over. "You're not?"

Gibbs looks to DiNozzo, who restrains from shaking his head.

"Wendy. You wererr here ... with Wendy."

"Yes. We need to talk." Gibbs insists, withholding 'can you send out your sober self?'

Together he and DiNozzo escort the man into his living room and deposit him on the couch. "Tony, get him some coffee."

"Juan Valdez doesn't have enou–" he catches Gibbs' glare. "Coming up."

x

Gibbs pulls a chair in front of the slumped man and resigns himself to a barely productive interview. He reflects that Langley, just getting his wife back from danger half a world away, has just lost her in a freak accident and wonders, given the same circumstances, how many bottles he might obliterate.

When it had happened to him all those years ago, he hadn't had the option of finding out.

Langley reaches for a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels laying amid scattered detritus. Gibbs' hand is faster and surer. "Coffee's coming."

"Coff-feee?"

"Yes." 'Very soon, I hope.' He wants to make some progress, if he can, before the inevitable collapse. "Tell me about Wendy."

"Wendy - was the bestest - moss ... bestest wom ... man. She din ... desherve wha happen to herrr." Langley looks at Gibbs, trying to focus. "Di I mension she was the bestest womm man there was?"

"Yes."

"Shhh didn desherv to die tha way... Shooda died innn ... Afghanashthan. Go ow a _heero_. Naa sho - ot ina showah. No one deshervs to ... die in a showah." He leans forward, almost topples off the couch if not for Gibbs support. "She wash a _Marine_! Do you _know _wha a Mar - rene ish?"

"Yes sir, I do."

"She shol - shoul - n't be knon died ina batshtub. Shooda gon out takn _Talabann _outt! Shee wahsh a _Mareen_! Otha Mareenes, thell laff at er, di-in ina bathtob. Sho - ot thrua wal -. They'll _laff_!"

"No, sir," Gibbs says. "No one will laugh. I give you my word."

"You kach tha - tha bashthard who kil ma Wendy. You - you kach em an you kils im!"

He falls back into the couch, and by the time DiNozzo returns Gibbs takes the coffee.

xxx

Tim and Ziva arrive at Hampton Arms to follow the rifle's trail while Gibbs and Tony are still upstairs. They'll rendezvous with their colleagues later. They approach the Security desk in the lobby, which is manned now by an Asian man in his early twenties. His nametag reads 'Lee'.

McGee, knowing Ziva hasn't cooled down from her earlier outrage, has a brief moment to wish he'd brought his own along.

"We get UPS, FedEx and Post Office deliveries every day, except Sundays, of course." Lee tells them. "They come in the morning to early afternoon, usually before four.

"When they come in, the delivery guy will roll a handcart in and give me or whatever officer is on duty a list. He'll wait while we call the tenants. If they're home, he'll go up. If not, we sign for and lock the stuff in the package room. Everything gets logged, whether it goes up or in.

"If we take it we lock it up and put a fake key into the mailbox." He points to the left wall. There are rows of square doors, several of which have tagged keys inserted. "The tenant sees he or she has something stored, brings us the key, signs the book and we get the item."

"The tenants never get them themselves?"

"Never. There's one key to the room, right here." He displays a set on a chain attached through his belt loop.

"We're interested in a delivery that came in last Monday or Tuesday for apartment 9J."

Lee pulls a ledger book from inside the desk, opens it and pages back. "Here it is," he says after a few moments search. "Tuesday, the 13th. Came in 1031 from Bill at UPS, he's the regular guy. It was put in the package room, which means Joe Desas called upstairs, got no answer. He signed for all the packages that couldn't go up, put ... nine in the room, logged and initialed them, see here. Tenant in 9J, Samantha Sky, signed for the package at 1639 the same day, Mike initialed it."

"Mike?"

"Mike Roberts, he was on the 1600 to midnight that day."

"Do you know where he is now?" He wants to be certain the package was a long rifle, not an envelope filled with DVDs from Netflix.

Lee shrugs. "Not a clue, today's his Saturday, my Wednesday."

McGee takes the camera from the bag at his feet and photographs the page.


	10. Inquisition

Chapter Ten  
Inquisition

"So our little Probino's getting married," Tony DiNozzo announces in tones that resonate through the bullpen. It's been two hours since the four had returned from the Hampton Arms. Everyone recognizes the tone that rides DiNozzo's words. They know he's gearing up for some harmless - from _his _point of view - fun at his friend's expense.

Tim grinds his teeth. He's not in the mood but recognizes his partner's motive and decides, this time, to just let it happen. The alternative, with Gibbs occupied elsewhere, is to dwell upon the vicious capriciousness of fate and on the downfall of a friend.

"One would be amazed," Ziva quips, joining DiNozzo for another round of 'Razz the Probie'. Since the break in their romantic relationship months ago, when McGee had decided he loved Siobhan O'Mallory instead, she is more inclined to be McGee's sniper than his defender.

The game has not changed even though the 'Probie' title - or in her case 'Probette' as DiNozzo styles her - had shifted to Michelle Palmer.

"It seems so short a time ago," Ziva continues, "that he was a flightless bird under the wings of more seasoned professionals."

McGee says nothing. Ziva had not taken anyone under her wing. He has more than a year's tenure on her.

Michelle, on Tim's right, tries to divert the course of the conversation. "Have you selected your Best Man? Wedding's coming up fast."

"Yeah, Probie," DiNozzo, on his left, latches onto this thread, his enthusiasm revving up. "Things like that are very important. The wrong Best Man can ruin the most important part of the wedding."

"Yeah?" Tim asks flatly. "What's that?"

"_The Bachelor Party!_" Tony announces grandly. With his hedonistic focus, this comes to no one's particular surprise. "The last night of a man's existence as a free agent in charge of his life, before he submits to the horrors of compromise and cooperation."

"I thought that was what marriage is all about," Ziva challenges.

"Maybe where you come from. Tell her, Probette."

Michelle favors him with an enigmatic smile. "As, for another three weeks yet, the only married agent on this team, I plead the Fifth."

"I love it when a woman begs."

She gives him a sour look, but her own curiosity has been aroused, so she focuses on McGee who sits caught between them. "So who have you picked?"

"Please do not say Gibbs," Ziva appeals.

"Or Ducky," Tony chimes in. "I can just imagine the kind of party he'd throw."

"Actually," Michelle is a half-word faster than Tim, "Jimmy quite enjoyed the one Ducky threw for him."

"What was it like?"

"I don't know," she admits, "he won't tell me. He says I'm _still _too virginal."

"Might be worth trying just to find out," McGee admits, "but I was going to ask Tony."

x

DiNozzo had had a zinger ready for, he thought, every possible choice the Probie could make, so he's quite derailed. "_Me_?"

"Well, Tony, you did say we were brothers, and I've never had anyone who could keep me on my toes quite the way you do. I always have to out-think you, and if that's not the basis for a relationship ..." He leaves the rest unsaid, allowing Tony to infer whatever he wishes.

"Well... Okay... Yeah... Thanks..." But then he recovers with a burst of DiNozzoesque enthusiasm. "Probie, I'm going to throw you the biggest, the _wildest _bachelor party you've never imagined! It'll be so wild O'Mallory'll divorce you before she even marries you!"

"Thanks ... I think."

"You don't have to worry, Tim," Michelle assures him with a smile filled with relish for the future. "What Abby and I - and the rest of the girls - have in mind for _her _will have her blushing for a week."

"Do tell," Tony urges.

She shakes her head, but her eyes on Tim are filled with promise. "Not a chance; it's illegal in fifteen states."

"Forget about parties," Gibbs' order announces his arrival in the bullpen. "Abby confirmed the rifle's the murder weapon."

"She must've hated that," DiNozzo says sympathetically. She'd been Sky's most fervent supporter, if the five messages on his voice mail are any indication.

"DiNozzo, Palmer, Observation One." Gibbs doesn't slow down, picks up a file folder from his desk, continues out the rear of the bullpen. Tony and Michelle look at one another, uncertain which of them is more mystified by this fly-by command. They decide it's wisest to head for the elevator. McGee falls in at their heels.

Ziva doesn't intend to move.

xxx

Sammy Sky is escorted by SA Janet Levy into the sparse Interrogation room. This time she wears clothes from home, which had been obtained by McGee and Palmer. They'd taken them from the bottom of a drawer and Abby has already certified them as clean of forensic evidence.

Levy deposits her charge and turns to the door. "Do you have to go?" Sammy asks, nervous. She clutches the ends of her long, straight blonde hair in her right hand, trying to keep her hand from shaking. The room, clean though it is, smells of disinfectant and fear.

"You won't be hurt."

"Agent Gibbs won't hurt me, but – I could really use a friend. I haven't seen anyone in _hours_."

"Sorry," Levy answers sharply, then decides it might've been too sharp. Innocent until proven guilty, after all. "Sorry. No one in Interrogation, you know tha–"

The door opens and Gibbs is followed by a grim, trench-coated detective Janet's met numerous times before. "Levy?"

"Just leaving, sir," she assures the grey man, not caring for his tone and anxious to get out. Unfortunately, she already has orders that will keep her on the other side of the door. She hasn't told Sky what is to be her fate.

"But–!" Sammy tries again to appeal for a friendly supporter. This room is clean but smells of fear and desperation.

"Sit down," Gibbs commands. His tone is not hard, but it's the command of someone who expects to be obeyed.

Sammy sits behind the table, clutching her hands together upon it. Normally height means little to her with so much of the world seemingly made up of giants, but she feels oppressively short compared to the grim men who tower on either side of her.

xx

In the dark Observation room, Tony, Michelle and Tim watch grimly through the large one-way mirror, hating to have to witness the downfall of a friend. The fact that she brought her fate upon herself makes it harder.

No one speaks of it, but heartache and anger are heavy in the darkness.

x

They're surprised when the door behind them opens and a man enters and seals the door, shutting out the light. "Ducky?" Tim can count on two hands the number of times in his four years here that Mallard has come to witness an interrogation.

"I heard what happened," the man tells them, his voice lifeless.

Tim turns back to the inner, lighted room as Gibbs takes his place at the table and lays a manila folder before him. It makes little difference who alerted the grim Scotsman; Ziva or Michelle or even Tony beside him. "I'm sorry, Ducky. I know you liked her."

"Like, Timothy," Ducky insists, taking a place beside them, looking in on his former apprentice with undisguised regret. "Like."

"Where's your sensitivity, Probie?" But even DiNozzo's dig doesn't have the feeling he'd normally impart, as if he can't work up to the taunt. He too only has eyes for the drama about to unfold within the chamber.

"Which do you think he'll lead off with?" McGee asks, "Kindly uncle or outraged father?"

"Gibbs is too pissed. It'll be 'bad cop, worse cop'." DiNozzo recalls, however, that he misses more of these predictions of his boss' technique than he hits.

xx

"Aren't you going to say anything?" Sammy appeals to Gibbs after a minute of his steady stare. She doesn't like the way Detective Carpenter looms behind her, visible in the mirror, like an implacable gargoyle.

"Let's talk about your gun," Gibbs directs, reaching into the closed file folder on the table before him.

"_What _gun?" Sammy demands. He slides out two 8 by 10 color photos, "I told you I don't _own _a–"

One picture is of the upper shelf of Sammy's bedroom closet, on which the white, red and black edge of a short box is visible under a stack of light summer clothing. The second is the interior of the open box displaying the Beretta, clip and box of ammunition. Sammy stares, Gibbs and Carpenter watch the color drain from her face. "Ohhh my _God_," she breathes, "I forgot about..."

Gibbs is disappointed. He'd hoped she'd try to claim the weapon was Huston's. Given what he knows of her from their weeks of working together, however, he wouldn't have believed it.

He doesn't want to have to sit here and interrogate someone he'd considered, if not a friend, at least someone he'd trusted. Sammy Sky was always so open he'd once doubted it was possible for her to tell a lie. Now, despite his long and varied skill as reading - seeing through - liars, this time he's uncertain. She's either become very good at lying, very quickly, or...

He decides to give her another chance. With great effort he keeps his voice mild when he wants to slam the table and shout. "You're going to tell me you keep a semi-automatic pistol in your bedroom and you forgot about it."

She looks up at him, her eyes wide with sincerity he works to gauge. "Agent Gibbs, I swear to you I _forgot_!"

He'll give her one last chance. "How?"

"Ken got it for me when I moved out here from Omaha."

"Ken?"

"My brother. He said I needed a gun if I wanted to live in DC. I told him he was crazy. I put it away four years ago and didn't look at it since. I hate guns."

x

In the Observation room, the response to this is mixed indeed. Tim and Michelle found the gun in her apartment but her sincerity rings a note as true as the entire conversation seems a lie.

x

"Why not just sell it?" Gibbs asks, keeping his voice level, emotionless.

"I don't know," Sammy admits, dejected, eyes downcast, but then she looks back up, fired. "But I never opened it. I _swear _I never opened it. Look at it! You can _see _I never opened it!"

"We know. This isn't the weapon that killed Karen Huston. But it didn't help you that you said you didn't have this."

He slides out a photo of the suspect rifle. A yardstick laid next to it gives scale.

"This is the murder weapon," he says, his level tone is more penetrating than the shout he wants to blast her with. "A .308 Winchester Magnum, bought in Virginia. Accurate to twelve hundred yards. When it was found, it was still loaded with teflon coated 'Agent-killer', full metal jacket rounds." He gives her a long moment to study it while he studies her face. "Recognize it?"

She looks up, the image of innocence. "How could I recognize it?"

"It's yours."

Her pale blue eyes blink in disbelief.

x

"_No way_. What'da'ya mean it's _mine_?"

Gibbs notes the fragmented slang so rarely heard from her. Something is breaking down, he suspects it's her credulity - or her credibility. "You bought it in Virginia."

"Did _not_!"

"Your track record with the truth stinks. I wish just once you'd answer a question honestly."

She leaps from her chair. "I'm _telling _you the _truth_!"

Gibbs pulls out the sales record from Singh Tsong Sports, watches as Sammy stares at it, at her authenticated signature on the bottom, face ashen, eyes wide as saucers.

Two hours ago Handwriting Analysis Section authenticated her signature by comparing it with known samples of her handwriting. That is one more reason for the rage he feels burning his gut.

"You bought it two weeks ago," Gibbs reminds her grimly, holding back a shout of anger, "when your relationship with Huston went south and the officials gave you their ultimatum."

"No," she breathes faster and faster, staring at the paper, at her signature and address.

"You had it shipped home," he slides another photo out, the Package Log signature sheet from Hampton Arms, "where you signed for the delivery."

She's panting, hyperventilating. "No. This isn't–!"

"Then when you got the final word from the College you used the weapon on Huston."

"_No_. This can't–!"

"But it was overkill. The .22 would've done fine. You probably thought we wouldn't think someone your size would use a weapon like this. Afraid it'd knock you over?"

"_No_! You've got it all–!"

He's had enough. He slams the table, the explosion makes her jump back as he releases the anger that's been building all day. "You wanted to know why you're at NCIS instead of Metro? The bullet that killed Huston went through your back wall where it killed _Staff Sergeant Wendy Langley_ while she was taking a shower!"

All the blood drops from Sammy's face this time. Her chest heaves, she can't breathe fast enough to keep up. Her horror at this harsh revelation is the only display of emotion so far that Gibbs believes. "No. This _can't _be!"

Carpenter is beside her, his hand tight about her arm. "Samantha Sky, you are under arrest for the murders of Karen Huston and Wendy Langley." He hauls her to her feet and secures a cuff about her cold left wrist. She stares at it as though it's a monstrous tentacle.

She tears out of Carpenter's grip with strength that surprises him and backs away into the left corner. "NO!" she shrieks, "YOU'RE LYING! I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING!"

x

In Observation the assembled agents can't believe what they're seeing. None of them can remember so hysterical a reaction and it's all the more stunning coming from their lively, joyous friend.

Tony restrains himself with white-fingers clutching the window frame. He'd almost charged to the girl's rescue, he must hold himself still and watch as she's taken.

"It's not fair!" Michelle protests. "We should–!"

"Shut up!" DiNozzo snaps. The command batters them.

x

"I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING!" her shriek echoes in the small room. She tries to evade the huge man, almost lost to Gibbs' sight as she's pinned into the corner. "Let me _go_!" she screams. "I'm _innocent_! _I didn't do anything_!" Her shrieks have to be painful as she's turned to face the corner and the second cuff is secured behind her.

She twists away, breaks from the corner, but can't slip from Carpenter's grasp a second time. Arms pinned behind her back, she strains to reach Gibbs.

"HELP ME!" She screams, amazing him more with her plea. She struggles impotently in Carpenter's grip. The door opens and Janet Levy enters and goes to the struggling pair. Seeing her, Sammy screams for her aid but she's shocked when Levy restrains _her _instead of Carpenter!

Struggling, kicking at them, Sammy returns her cries to Gibbs. "Please! I didn't _do _it!" He doesn't move. "HELP ME!" she screams shrilly, struggling wildly in their grasp. Straining to reach Gibbs, she taxes the strength of both Carpenter and Levy.

They take advantage of her efforts, force her quickly past the table and toward the door. She tries to brace her sneakers to the floor, continues to scream for help but she can't hold them back. "LEAVE ME _ALONE_! I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING!" Shoved to the door, she gets her foot up on the frame and turns her appeals to the mirrored window, screaming piteously for help.

She's forced out into the hall. By each arm Carpenter and Levy turn her about and drag her backwards down the corridor, her kicks and struggles accomplish nothing. "AGENT GIBBS! PLEASE! STOP THEM! _HELP_!"

The door to Observation One opens and a stricken man steps out, his pained face showing every one of his years.

"DUCKY _HELP_! HELP ME _PLEASE_! Don't let them _take _me! _Ducky_!" She's dragged toward the corner. "DUCKY! DUCKY PLEASE HELP ME! DUCKY! _**DUCKYYYYY**_!"


	11. An Impulsive Act

Chapter Eleven  
An Impulsive Act

Staccato banging and frantic ringing of their apartment doorbell slam Jimmy and Michelle Palmer awake. "What the devil?" Jimmy demands, hand closing expertly upon the folded glasses on his night table. Michelle is already out of bed, yanking a robe about herself. Jimmy glares at the clock radio on the dresser.

"_Two thirty_," he reaches for his own robe with one hand, his other to the brass touch-lamp beside him. He brings the small bulbs to one-third illumination.

The banging and ringing never slow, and when Jimmy turns he's surprised to see Michelle pulling her Sig from its holster set upon her dresser. "'Chelle?" She turns, tosses the leather back. "A burglar wouldn't knock."

But this is more than knocking. Someone is slapping the door, the bell screaming as they hurry down the short hall to their living room and the abused door. Michelle steps into the living room, five feet back from the door, the gun held ready in a classic shooter stance. Jimmy goes to the portal, carefully out of line. "Who is it?" he demands, more to put a stop to the racket before they must contend with angry neighbors.

"_Abby_," comes the filtered voice. Michelle tosses her weapon on the couch as Jimmy yanks the door open and the frantic, black-swathed woman almost falls into the room.

"What happened?" Jimmy demands.

"_Who's dead_?" Michelle almost drowns out her husband. She can conceive of no other reason for this invasion and steels herself for the pronouncement.

"No one," Abby replies, taken aback. "That is, no one lately." Their wide eyes scream the question. "I needed to see you; that is, you, Michelle. Sorry to wake you too, Jimmy."

"Sorry to _wake _me? It's two-thirty in the _morning_!"

"Abby, what in the Name of Dana is going on?"

"They arrested Sammy Sky for double murder."

"I know. I was _there_." It had been hard to watch the woman's hysterics as she was dragged out of Interrogation. She'd nearly interfered, can barely believe even now that Agent DiNozzo had nearly had to restrain her.

"Doctor Mallard was too," Jimmy says. The man had been a bear for the rest of the evening, snapping at him over everything. Jimmy had kept his silence as long as possible and had gotten out of Autopsy for home at the first moment he could.

"I have to get in to see her," Abby exclaims. "I don't believe she's guilty. I have to talk to her."

x

Michelle can't believe this. She has to be dreaming this surreal nonsense. "But why come to us?" She leaves off 'and throw us out of bed?'

"Because I'm the Forensic Scientist, _you're _the Federal Agent. You're the one who can get in."

Michelle doesn't ask how many 'Caf-Pow's the woman's inhaled. Seeing the caffeine gleam in her green eyes, she doesn't want to know; she's sure the answer will be somewhere in the double digits. "I'm also the lawyer. There are procedures, as you know very well. If you found evidence she's innocent, you go to Gibbs. Didn't you ask him?"

"I did. He said no."

Michelle stares up at the woman, more certain than ever this is a lucid dream and wondering why she can't remember the 'wake-up' key. "You're asking me to go over Gibbs' head?"

"_Yes_."

x

For a moment all is silent. Michelle can't believe she's heard this. Even for a dream, this is unreal. For a 'Caf-Pow' fueled rant, it's still outrageous.

The problem, however, is that as much as she tries to convince herself that she's still in bed, she can't.

"Abby," Jimmy says from behind the distraught woman, making her turn around to him. "Doctor Mallard hasn't even been able to get in to see her, not since she was put into Holding." He restrains himself from pointing out Mallard also knew better than to press the issue while Sky was still being investigated.

"But _I _have to!"

Michelle tries a different tack, deciding this is too weird to be a dream, that it must be reality and that Abby has gone mad from too much time spent alone in that sterile lab. "I barely know her." Abby turns back to her. "Why should I risk–?"

"Michelle, you _owe _me!"

x

This hits hard, and for a moment she tries to recall what debt could be called in with a frantic visit in the middle of the night and that would induce her to go over the head of Leroy Jethro Gibbs. A swan dive off the Washington Monument is preferable - and safer.

"I didn't know we were keeping score. Yes, you saved my life when Harry Whitney shot at me, and I remember taking a good beating when Mikel Mawher came after you. How do I 'owe' you?"

"I'll think of something."

"Risking defying Gibbs, it'd better be good."

"Oh, it will be."

"There's nothing that good."

"Michelle –!"

She holds up her hands to head off another impassioned rush. "Abby, I _can't _get you in to see her, even discounting going over Gibbs."

"Michelle, _please_. Sammy couldn't have done this. I don't believe it. I know she and Huston fought. I know Tony says she hated Huston - with a passion - one you can only get from betrayed love - but I'm sure she didn't kill her."

Respect for loyalty, and the woman's obvious OD on caffeine, will carry just so much leeway with Michelle and this is too much. She sees past the taller woman that Jimmy has already passed to anger. She raises her hand as much to hold back Abby as to restrain her husband. "Abby, she bought the gun, the witness who sold her the gun picked her out of a photo lineup. She had it shipped, signed for it and used it."

"Well, with thinking like that we'll _never _prove she's innocent."

x

Michelle feels her temper break at the woman's accusing tone. 'How dare you–?' she thinks but manages to contain it. Another glance at Jimmy shows he's working as hard to control his anger and not succeeding as well. If she doesn't come up with a solution fast, she'll be fighting on two fronts, and she and Jimmy do _not _fight.

"Look, if you're determined that she's innocent I do have an idea. I can make a call -_ in the morning_."

"Thank you."

Michelle can't block Abby's hug and is too aggravated to return the embrace.

Abby turns, finds an exasperated Jimmy blocking her way.

"Abby, I've always liked you–"

"I like you too, Jimmy."

"Thanks." His anger half slips away, he has to reach for it.

"I'm just trying to help my friend."

He retrieves it. "I know you are. But Abby, don't you _ever _come busting in here like this again unless I have to go to work."

His tone finally breaks through to her. "I promise."

xxx

Donald Mallard steps off the elevator to find all the lights blazing within Autopsy. This isn't too surprising; he averages first arrivals about four-fifths of the time. No, his surprise comes from seeing Karen Huston's body on the middle silver table and his assistant's hands deep within her thoracic cavity. The ceiling fans, nearly silent, work to keep the air clear of the miasma of death. "What's going on here?" he asks before the sliding glass doors are even fully open.

Jimmy looks up at him through the plastic mask shielding his face. "Oh, good morning, doctor," he says with that distinctive distortion the shield imparts

"You're getting an early start," Ducky says, approaching the table, still awaiting the answer to what he'd considered an eminently reasonable question.

"You're not kidding," Jimmy pushes the visor-like shield up with his forearm and pulls his stained latex gloves off. He tosses them into the wastebasket at the foot of the table to his right.

Ducky looks up into his assistant's bloodshot eyes. "How long have you been here?"

"Since a little after four."

"Really?" He looks forward to hearing the reason for this burst of diligence - and for the answer to his original question.

"Abby came to visit, got us up at two-thirty. When she left I couldn't fall asleep again. I decided I could toss and turn and keep 'Chelle awake or I could come in and find out some things."

Ducky hears the aggravation bubbling below the surface and recalls his own mood last evening. Seeing his friend and former apprentice being dragged off to jail, listening to her heartbreaking pleas for help - help he couldn't give - had been very hard to endure.

His heart is still torn, and he deeply regrets that the young woman has brought herself to this fate. This morning he'd tried to keep the sharp memory from his mind. Now he can't.

x

"Why did Abby choose such an hour to visit?"

"She wanted 'Chelle to go over Agent Gibbs' head and get her into Corrections to see Sammy." His tone leaves no doubt as to his opinion of this request.

"Ah."

"She's convinced Sammy didn't do it, but I don't appreciate her coming so late to have 'Chelle stick her neck out."

"Miss Sciuto and Miss Sky share one characteristic. Each is capable of letting passionate commitment lead them to impulsive acts."

"That's a nice way of putting it."

"So what are you doing?" he asks, looking down at the woman's spread open torso between them.

"An impulsive act," Jimmy admits with a sigh. "I'm trying to see if there's anything about Karen Huston that Doctor Hampton might've – that might've been missed, that could mean Sammy could be innocent."

The thoracic cavity had been nearly emptied by Jordan Hampton, the organs returned to their proper positions when she had concluded her examination and Jimmy had sutured the body. That is one reason Ducky had been surprised to find that Palmer had reopened it. He doesn't mention, however, that though the body is still here, it's legally in Metro's jurisdiction, not NCIS'. He's interested in knowing what his assistant, a competent Examiner in his own right, had expected to learn from the body. "And?"

"I'm not sure."

x

Jimmy steps around the table to his usual spot, his back to the door, surrendering the right-hand position to his mentor. Ducky looks into Huston's body; most of her organs have been moved about in Palmer's investigation.

"Well, while I change," he starts to turn away, "tell me about what you've found so far."

"Doctor?" Jimmy had been apprehensive, not wanting the venerable man to think that _he _thinks the two more experienced Examiners had missed something. But there's no annoyance in his Mentor's tone; he seems perfectly willing to reexamine the evidence in a new light.

Ducky turns back. "Assume you've done the autopsy and I am just coming upon the scene." More truth than poetry to that this morning, he has to admit. "Tell me your findings and give me your evaluation."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, doctor."

"Proceed, Mr. Palmer."

x

As Ducky steps away and removes his overcoat, Jimmy reaches across the body and retrieves from the table the clipboard with his notes. "Well, the shot was so powerful, a .308 magnum full metal jacket at point blank range, that it _severed _her 6th right rib, went through the lower lobe of her right lung, carrying with it considerable small bone shrapnel that tore through her lung. We found several pieces of bone had penetrated the lung, one fragmen exited the rear of the lung and lodged in the erector spinae muscle." He restrains a smile, realizing how much he sounds like his mentor reporting to Agent Gibbs. 'Must be something about this job.'

He steps over to the lighted panels on the wall, upon which he's already set up the x-ray sheets from the file.

"Another fragment of the severed rib was driven back into the lung, where it cut the outer layer and several alveoli clusters. The bullet tore through quite a few, the bone shrapnel did even more damage in a scattershot pattern. The bullet then punched a hole through the lower tip of her right scapula, exited her back ... and kept on going." When Jimmy looks back, Ducky is in the store room beside his desk. He raises his voice.

"The impact, according to blood spatter analysis, knocked Huston off her feet. She landed on her back with her feet forty-one inches back from the arc of the door."

"What then was the Cause of Death?" Ducky calls.

"Well," Jimmy answers as penetratingly, "the wound wasn't immediately fatal. The Crime Scene photos show she lived for several seconds at least, long enough to smear the blood flowing from her chest, back and from what she coughed up. Doctor Hampton ruled the Cause–"

"I am not _concerned _with Doctor Hampton's ruling," Ducky bites as he emerges from the room holding a blue scrubs top. He's already wearing the pants. "I want your determination."

"Yes, doctor." He's taken aback by the reprimand but works to gather his thoughts.

"The damage to her lung, both from the bullet and shrapnel, was the Manner of Death," he continues. "The volume of blood loss through her entry and exit wounds was considerable even though the exit wound was small compared to what it would have been from a 'normal' bullet. This one, being armored, wasn't as damaged, even after severing the rib and punching through the scapula." He considers the next point carefully; it had bothered him during Hampton's autopsy, but he'd kept his peace then. This wasn't their body, it belonged to Metro and Hampton was the ME.

Now it's his body - for the moment, at least. "But the thing that bothered me is how the bullet actually went _up _as it passed through her body. In most cases we see, slowing down as it passes through the body makes the bullet come out lower, if even a fraction of an inch, than from when it went in. This one ascended about four degrees."

"And what does that tell you?"

"I disagree with Lieutenant Carpenter." Having received Hampton's findings, Jeffery Carpenter made his decision. "I don't think Sammy fired up because Huston is taller. I say the ascension came from her being knocked off her feet and the bullet following its trajectory as her body's angle changed."

"And you would put that in your report?"

Jimmy thinks it over. It's not much to think about, his decision hasn't changed since last evening. "Yes."

x

"I'm still waiting for a Cause of Death," Ducky presses him. Jimmy comes back around the foot of the table to where Ducky waits. The reopened body of the young woman lies dormant beside them.

"I say she choked to death," he declares. "Her right lung was filled with blood. We found it coating her trachea, mouth and what she'd coughed up all over her head and in a two-foot radius."

"How long would you say she lived?"

Jimmy frames his answer carefully, well aware that the older man has his own, almost certainly the accurate one. "Judging from the volume of blood lost, I'd say a few seconds one side or the other of a minute."

"And why would you call that unusual?"

He's about to say 'I didn't call it unusual', but it's obvious Ducky has seen something he wants him to find.

x

"The bullet went through her lung at nearly point blank range. If Sammy was standing just outside the door, maybe about three feet, why didn't she shoot her in the heart?" The medical student certainly knew exactly where to hit her to guarantee Huston would be dead before she hit the floor.

"Precisely, Mr. Palmer. The difference between a virtually instantaneous death and a lingering, intensely painful one. Why?"

"She was mad at her?" He hadn't spoken to the girl, but he'd pieced together what he'd supposed was enough.

"While that is granted, by her own admission, we have yet to learn just how mad. Did Sammy Sky kill her?"

x

Jimmy doesn't want to answer too quickly. "'Chelle says when she brought Sammy's clothes from her apartment - in fact when she brought the first set from Sammy in Holding so Abby could inspect what she was wearing last evening - that Sammy had a lot of bruises and scratches, including a large bruise on her right shoulder."

"That came from a rifle stock?"

"I can't say. I never saw the photos."

"Correct answer, my boy." He looks down at the woman's body beside them. "Come, Mr. Palmer, let us put Miss Huston back in order and allow her to rest. It's high time you began learning the art of the Psychological Autopsy."

"Yes, sir!" He's delighted enough to almost miss Ducky's glare. When he does see it, it freezes him in his place.

x

"You do realize, however," Ducky says firmly, "that you had absolutely no right or jurisdiction to re-examine this body or to revisit the case. Though there is presently no place at Metro to store this body until it is picked up tomorrow, Miss Huston is neither in the Navy nor is she a Marine. She resides firmly in Metro's jurisdiction."

His glare hardens. "Staff Sergeant Wendy Langley is our case. I shall have to explain to Metro _why _Miss Huston's body was reopened and sewn a second time."

"Yes, doctor."

"I trust you are sorry for your impulsive act."

Jimmy had started to feel properly remorseful, but now he changes his mind and meets his mentor's hard stare. "No," he decides. "No, I'm not."

"_No_?"

"No, sir. You don't have to answer to Metro. I did it and if they ask I'll tell them. Sergeant Langley wasn't the target; she was a by-stander. I can't learn from examining her the details I can get from Huston."

"And if Detective Carpenter is dissatisfied with that?"

It's been a very long morning following a late night, and this time not even the earlier pleasures of the night with 'Chelle can counter Abby's visit. "Then I'mgoing to tell him to stick it."

He's surprised, and no little relieved, to watch Mallard's stern expression morph into a grin.

"Excellent, Mr. Palmer. Excellent."


	12. Arraignment

Chapter Twelve  
Arraignment

At 9:47, a dreary, cold, drizzly morning, Sammy Sky, wearing an orange jumpsuit a size too large, is escorted from a holding cell next door to a courtroom into that sanctum. The burly Court Officer towers over her, pulls her by her left arm into the inner well and makes her stand alone behind the long table at the left side, before the second of two seats.

People exit and enter the gallery behind her as cases wait to be called. Sammy had always anticipated her first day in a courtroom. She'd be called as a witness - someday to earn the cherished rank of 'Expert Witness' - to testify to her findings in an autopsy.

Never had she imagined she would see her first courtroom from over here.

The courtroom is dark. The dark mahogany bench, witness box, jury bay, tables, chairs cast the room in gloom. Proclaimed from behind the black robed judge are the words 'In God We Trust', Sammy wishes she could find someone in this room to trust.

The room is scented with lemon furniture polish and fear.

She searches the room, especially the gallery, for any friendly face. She is alone. Alone save for a dispassionate judge, robed in black, above but before her instead of to her right as she'd sit in the witness box. Alone save for the tall woman at the table to her right, the woman who wants to destroy her. Alone with the empty seat to her right.

"Case 428375," the uniformed Bailiff announces, "People of the District of Columbia versus Samantha Sky. Charge; one count of Murder in the First Degree, one count Manslaughter."

"Miss Sky," the judge's deep voice sounds like thunder. "Where is your lawyer?"

She can only manage a voice as tiny as she feels. "I don't have one, your Honor. I can't afford one."

The dark judge doesn't conceal his annoyance at this interruption in the flow. "Is Legal Aid present?" This is a formality; he already has his eyes on the hawk-faced man rising from the second row in the gallery.

Sammy looks back to her advocate, unable to swallow her apprehension as this man approaches. This isn't how court's supposed to be in her future.

She's supposed to become the veteran of a thousand testimonies, not one time standing here before spending the rest of her life in prison. As the suited man takes his place by her side and sets his briefcase on the table she looks ahead, unable to pull her gaze from the seat beside the judge.

'It's not _fair_. I'm supposed to be _there_, not here!'

x

"I beg the court's pardon," a woman's voice calls from the rear. Sammy, along with several others, turns to see a black woman coming up the central aisle of the gallery and through the swinging gate into the well. "I've just arrived."

"And you are?"

"Kendra Little, your Honor." This exchange is for the record, without regard to the fact that she's pled more than fifty cases before this man. "I've been retained as Samantha Sky's counsel." She takes the place of the other lawyer who departs for his seat in the gallery.

"_Who are you_?" Sammy whispers up at the taller woman, fear making her light headed, ill. Things are happening too fast.

"Michelle Palmer hired me," Little whispers as softly, knowing the brief proceeding isn't going to be delayed. "We'll discuss that later, my dear,"

"People on Charges?"

"Your Honor," the woman at the table to Sammy's right declares, "the defendant is charged with purchasing a high-powered magnum rifle and, after a series of violent confrontations, with using that rifle to shoot and kill her roommate, Ms. Karen Huston. The bullet, a full metal jacket round, subsequently went through a wall into the adjacent apartment where it struck and killed another person, one Staff Sergeant Wendy Langley, an Active Duty Marine."

"Counsel on plea?"

Kendra knows the ADA's wording, particularly that last phrase, had been geared for its emotional effect. "Not guilty, your Honor."

"Defense on bail?"

"Your Honor, the defendant has been a resident in the District for four years, is gainfully employed and is a student at George Washington University. She has no criminal record. We ask for bail to be set."

"People?"

"Your Honor, due to the depraved indifference in the use of so powerful a weapon which resulted in a second death, coupled with the defendant's having no ties to the District other than a part time job, and with her family residing in Omaha, the People move for Remand."

"So ordered. The defendant is remanded to the Department of Corrections pending trial."

The bang of the gavel is thunder in Sammy's ears. She doesn't hear the judge ordering the next case, nor feel the bailiff's hand tug at her arm. She stares up into the eyes of the black stranger beside her.

"This can't be happening," she whispers.

xxx

Tim McGee returns from the café, his favorite extra-huge coffee mug in his hand. He slams in down on his desk, sloshing the hot brown liquid onto his hand. He jerks it back, clutching his injured hand, but the expression on his face is hotter than the coffee. No one challenges his heat, they have their own.

"There were a lot of calls to MPDC over the past month," Michelle Palmer reports to Tim, keeping her voice empty. Concentrate on work, not on failure to save a friend.

Though in Gibbs' absence she knows she should direct her comments to Tony DiNozzo as Senior Field, she's always had a more comfortable relationship with the younger agent. Shared danger and secrets during their captivity some months ago have done much to cement their working relationship.

"What did you find?" McGee asks, also ignoring the man to his left. He sits down, brings the huge mug carefully to his lips, tries to focus on containing his feelings rather than earning another burn. Ignoring Tony DiNozzo is just what he needs to pick up his spirits.

"In the past month there were six calls to Metro, mostly noise complaints, though one has a notation of injuries observed by the responding officers."

"Who was injured?" He can't see DiNozzo's face behind him but can read Michelle's, knows just how being ignored is annoying his friend.

"Both of them, but since neither would press charges against the other, all Metro could do was take the repor–"

"All right, probinos, what is this, a coffee club?" DiNozzo explodes. "Share, people. There are no private campfires."

"Oh, we weren't sharing?" Michelle asks innocently.

"I thought we were sharing," Tim agrees.

"No, you weren't. Now, what've you got?"

"I'm done," Michelle tells him.

"Me too," McGee agrees, contented.

xxx

"Ducky, I need to pick your brain," Gibbs announces as he enters Autopsy and sees the two Examiners seated at the desk at the far wall.

"Then take a number, Jethro, class is in session."

When Gibbs stops at the desk, he glances down at the textbooks spread open on the desk and doesn't care about them. His glare conveys all the men need to know. "Number One."

He looks beyond the venerable man and changes his stare to his 'get out of here, Palmer' one, though he addresses Ducky. "I have to ask you about Sky. I need one of your psych thingies."

"Then you're just in time," Ducky says with a smile, not having been serious about putting his friend off. He closes a restraining hand about Palmer's wrist a the young man attempts to rise, "we were doing precisely that."

'Okay, no privacy, fine.' "All the evidence points straight to Sky as a cold-blooded killer who planned her friend's murder, bought the gun and executed her with it. Yet when I talk to her–"

"You see a young lady deeply traumatized by her friend's death - and that of a perfect stranger - and vehemently decrying her innocence."

"I wouldn't put it like that, but yeah. She does more than deny it, she _believes _she's innocent."

"So you are asking?"

"Is she crazy?"

x

Ducky sighs, shaking his head at his friend's obtuseness. "Jethro, that is hardly a word I would use in a psychological evaluation."

"I leave the big words for you. Did she plan it, do it, and not know it?"

"I worked closely with the young lady for three weeks, to say nothing of our encounters since. Schizophrenia, or any other psychological abnormality, does not spring into being overnight. There are recognizable psychological stages one would be unable to avoid exhibiting. I was in touch with George Washington University when she first came to us - _my _standard vetting procedure. I did no less for Messers Jackson and Palmer. I obtained, among other things, her then-most-recent MMPI, MCMI, TAT–"

"English?"

Ducky sits back in the chair. "The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory and the Thematic Apperception Test are standard. You've taken them too. Therefore I have objective results to support my judgments." He gathers the books before him, arranges them in a stack on the desk.

"I found no indications in Miss Sky of mental aberration, then or now. She truly believes in her innocence and I find no medical reason to doubt that."

"Then how do you explain the witnesses? She bought the gun, she signed for it, she had it shipped home and received it."

Sitting back again, Ducky gives the only answer he can. "I do not."

x

Gibbs keeps his patience by a thread. He'd come seeking answers and is further back than when he'd come down. "What's your evaluation of her?"

"Sammy Sky is a twenty-four year old woman strongly ruled by her passions. Her core personality can be described, in understatement, as aggressively upbeat. She is consistently, until this incident, the happiest person I have ever known." He pushes the stack of books toward the wall.

"She can be quite impulsive when led by her emotions, yet is quite capable of containing those impulses when the circumstances call for it; at work here, for example."

He stands up, tired of craning his neck. "Her innate desire to help people led her to a study of medicine, and a little more than a year ago she determined to specialize in a career in Forensic Pathology." He leads Gibbs toward the closest silver autopsy table, as though to illustrate his point.

"A love of music, particularly the violin, coupled with considerable skill, have garnered her a position with an orchestra of no mean repute. She's said she has difficulty choosing which, pathology or music, to make a career and is doing her best to do justice to each." He leans back against the table, getting more comfortable.

"I judge her to be honest, almost too much so. Her emotional openness does not lend itself to easy prevarication. As an undercover operative, she would last half a day."

"What about sexually?"

x

"Well," now Ducky's uncomfortable, "it is rare for her lifestyle to come up in conversation. I understand her ... inclinations, as it were, would allow her to play a rather wide field. If you are seeking a potential jealousy angle, I doubt you will find one, save possibly from Huston to Sky."

"What about that S&M thing from the Powers case?" Sammy had been instrumental in providing clues that had led to the private club Taiwan On, where the agents had gained valuable insight into their target. In doing so Sky, a member of that eclectic club, had sacrificed much of her privacy.

Gibbs, in turn, had kept her secrets to as few people as possible. He hadn't questioned her then about that knowledge. Now, however, that inclination - whether as aggressor or victim he doesn't care - finds its way into the composite.

"You are confusing B&D - Bondage and Dominance, with S&M - Sadism and Masochism."

"I never could spell."

"Yes, well, we have even more rarely discussed that. I understand that her inclinations run more along the restrained, 'submissive' range of the scale." He's glad that, in Jimmy's presence, Gibbs doesn't press for details. "Such attractions do not automatically indicate a violent nature," he insists.

"They do explain all the screaming neighbors heard in that apartment."

This annoys Ducky, he comes off the support of the table. "She didn't do it, Jethro."

First Abby, now Ducky. "What makes you so sure?"

"My gut, Jethro. _My_ gut. Sammy Sky has the capacity to be a superlative Medical Examiner, she lacks only the experience that years will bring. She is too intelligent to purchase an assault rifle and gun down someone in her own apartment. Furthermore, it is not in her nature. Her personality profile, that image whereby we learn so much about our subjects, does not support such reckless, ill-conceived behavior."

"You worked with her for, what, three weeks?"

Ducky only manages to mask his exasperation. "Time enough to form a reasonable assessment of her. You often depend upon me to conduct psychological autopsies on people I've never met and you are guided by my evaluations."

x

"If she's guilty, and knows she's guilty," Gibbs maintains, "then she's the best liar I've ever met."

Ducky shakes his head. On this, he's on firm ground. He recalls the one time she'd tried; even her ears had blushed. "Sammy Sky is not a good liar."

"No, but there's the fights, the gun, the witnesses, the school censuring her... Motive, method and opportunity. Carpenter's satisfied he got the right one on Huston."

Ducky steps to within inches of the taller man, his eyes hardening. "Give me twenty-four hours before you close the book on her."

"Why?"

"Because I _asked_ you to."

xxx

Wearing latex gloves, Abby Sciuto pulls the Winchester rifle out of the evidence bag and sets it on stands on the table before her. She glares at the offending weapon as though it were a mortal enemy.

When she hears the beeper sound its double signal and the lab door slide aside, she doesn't bother to turn. "I'm not ready, Gibbs."

"Then it's a good thing I'm not Gibbs," Michelle Palmer's voice declares. Abby turns and finds both Tony and Michelle approaching. She would have recognized the woman, even if she hadn't turned about, from the scented oil that she can now detect. The witch makes her own perfumes based on magical ingredients, the esoteric significances of which Abby - despite her love of the outré - has never fully understood.

"Hi Michelle, Tony. Look, I'm sorry about last night, I was out of line. It's just–" She stops. She'd been talking to Michelle's upraised hand.

"I forgive you. Just don't do it again, okay?"

"You're not mad? I'd've been mad."

"I was mad. Not as much as Jimmy, though. He doesn't like to be woken up that early."

"What did he say?"

"Plenty, after you left."

"But he'll forgive me?"

She smiles to take some of the sting out. "I wouldn't go to Autopsy today if I were you but yes, he'll forgive you. He came into work before I was up, which is good because he can be moody in the mornings. Look, I just–" she glances up at the towering agent beside her. "Well, _we _just came down to tell you Sammy was arraigned this morning. I got her a good lawyer, though. Kendra Little."

"The High Priestess of your Coven?" Abby's delighted. She's met the woman before, though not professionally. "She's good, isn't she?"

"The best I know, but she doesn't come cheap. Which means if Sammy can't afford to pay her, guess who is." The petite woman's tone makes it clear she's not volunteering.

"Hey, no problem. I asked you for a favor. Thank you." Before Michelle can move Abby hugs her, and sees in Tony's expression that he wishes he'd done her the favor. Not to leave him feeling left out, she hugs him too. She can tell he enjoys it more. When she withdraws, she says hopefully; "So, Little got her out on bail?"

"Well, no," Michelle hates to admit that "the ADA got her remanded. Depraved indifference, premeditated, flight risk with all her family in Omaha..."

"Figures. So where is she?"

"DCDC." DiNozzo puts in.

Abby had been feeling good, now she aims all her left over exasperation at DiNozzo. "You know, Tony, there are days I hate abbreviations. Why not just _say _District of Columbia Department of Corrections?"

"District of Columbia Department of Corrections."

"Sammy's my _friend_. While you guys are trying to prove she did it, I'm doing all I can to prove she didn't."

"I'm on her side," Tony insists, offended that she'd think he could so easily dismiss a friend.

"That's different; you just want to get into her panties!" She turns away, stalks across the room. "I'm trying to–" DiNozzo blocks her path.

"Don't _ever _say that's all I want." His voice is deadly, his eyes burn. "The old DiNozzo maybe; this one stands up for friends."

"Wow." She's impressed by his fire - and his speed. Perhaps she's underestimated him in other ways?

"I don't believe she's guilty any more than you do," he continues, his voice still rock hard. "I was there in Observation. Carpenter and I have very different slants on her."

"So you'll back me?"

"No, but if there's proof she's innocent, I'll find it. Question is; where is it?"

"In her testimony, the one we didn't get to hear because Metro didn't ask the right questions."

She turns to lead the way, galvanized by his agreement and not willing to wait and risk a change of heart.

Gibbs is standing in front of her. "Then let's ask them."

x

He steps to the long table, nods at the weapon set on the blocks. "What'd you find on the gun?"

"Not a blessed thing. No fingerprints, nothing."

"She could've worn gloves," DiNozzo speculates. "She had access to plenty of them and if she was smart, which she is, she wore them whenever she touched it."

"There were gloves right in the bedroom," Michelle reminds them. She doesn't want to wonder what would lead the women to keep the latex gloves there.

"No, you don't get it," Abby counters, "I found _no _fingerprints. When you buy a gun you'll get prints from the manufacturer, the guy who packed it, there are loads of prints I have to exclude. I have most of them in a national database already, people registered with firearms manufacture. I have IAFIS set to exclude them whenever I test a new weapon." She stabs a finger at the rifle. "This is clean. I got zip, bupkis, nada - this thing's been polished to within an inch of its life. Bullets too."

"You're right, that is strange," Tony admits. In his years with Baltimore PD and with NCIS, he'd never encountered so thorough a cleaning after a homicide. Many try, it would take a Sciuto to succeed.

"That only shows she knew what to do," Michelle protests. "She's studied forensics, knows what we'd look for. We want to help her, not string her up."

"What still really bothers me," DiNozzo declares, looking down at the offending weapon, "is why do this? Why get a high power rifle when a .22 does the job just fine? She had the Baretta in her closet. All she had to do was load it, kill Huston, then toss it in the Potomac. That gun was registered to her brother, we might never have looked for it. Carpenter's satisfied she tossed this thing in a dumpster two blocks from where she lives. To me she's not that _stupid_. The ADA got her on depraved indifference because the bullet went through the wall."

"DiNozzo, Palmer, with me," Gibbs orders, his plans made while DiNozzo had been recapping. "Palmer," he looks her over, "change your shoes."


	13. A Private Talk

Chapter Thirteen  
A Private Talk

Reverend Siobhan O'Mallory, Chaplain of NCIS' Washington Division, meets Sammy Sky in an Interview room at the Department of Corrections. The chamber is no more than a table and two chairs behind a steel door, too reminiscent of NCIS' Interrogation rooms for either of their comforts. Each of them, she's sure, will have unpleasant associations with such rooms for a very long time.

As a priest, Siobhan has broad latitude concerning the visitation of prisoners, though normally she doesn't visit DCDC unless specifically requested to do so.

This is for friendship, not the job. She had retained a relationship with the spritely young woman after Sammy had left NCIS, even to having recruited the talented musician for the Christmas pageant two months ago.

She'd heard first from Timmy, then this morning from Abby, about Sammy's plight. 'Gibbs isn't big on emotion,' Timmy had told her over the phone, no longer restraining himself now that he was home, 'but I can't believe this is happening. It can't be. How can she be guilty?'

She'd let Timmy wind down on the phone, grateful she was hearing only the words. The entire situation just seemed too alien.

She'd barely opened her office this morning before making arrangements to come.

x

When Siobhan enters, she's struck to find Sammy seated at the table, dejected, utterly unlike her effervescent self. 'Sammy' and 'ecstasy' are ever linked in her mind; any lesser words don't fit. She's very sorry to see her friend reduced to this state, and doesn't want to admit the possibility that her friend might be guilty of the heinous crime of which she stands accused.

This is the very first time since the day they'd met that Sammy hasn't jumped up and greeted her with an enthusiastic hug. To Siobhan, this is more telling than any words.

x

"I'm not confessing, Mother," is the first thing Sammy says in greeting when the priest comes to the table. "Not to them, not even to you."

"I'm not here for confession, Sammy," she assures her. She must still use her left hand to pull out the chair and sit down opposite her friend, her right is still bound in the metal brace. She sets her purse upon the table, "though I could offer Absolution if you wish it."

"But I didn't _do _anything!"

"I'm not accusing." Siobhan doesn't believe, so she will certainly not support the accusation. She's here to allow Sammy to give her side. And if she can bring something back to NCIS to support her friend, then so much the better.

"You're the only one." Sammy sighs, then looks up as though seeing her visitor for the first time. In fact she is. She hadn't noticed the woman's strapped and metal supported right hand. "What happened?"

Siobhan glances at the brace, she doesn't want to go into it, doesn't want to allow the woman a distraction. "I had a few problems."

The entire city seemingly knows about that,

So she's slightly surprised Sammy doesn't, yet she doesn't want to go into it.

Instead, characteristically, Sammy tries for something much happier. "I hear you're getting married."

"Yes." 'This segue is sharp enough to give someone whiplash.'

"Congratulations. Have you set a date?"

"Saint Patrick's Day."

"Should've seen that coming," she says with a forced smile. To Siobhan, the words 'Sammy Sky' and 'forced smile' do _not _go together. "I'd love to play at your reception," she holds up her shackled hands, "but I don't think I can in handcuffs."

x

She's silent for so long that Siobhan softly prods "Do you want to talk about what happened?"

For a moment a piece of Sammy's old manner resurfaces. "You always can talk me into doing what I wouldn't normally do."

"I just offer you the opportunity to express your spirit."

She laughs, but it's not her free, easy expression. There's too much weight on her. "You got me, in talking to you for twenty minutes, to perform for an entire evening, which I'd get $500 for, for free - _and _to make a donation to boot."

"And you loved every second of it."

Sammy grins. "You're right." The Christmas Pageant was something far removed from her usual Classical fare, allowing an exuberant performance she rarely gets the chance to indulge in - as well as to have center stage rather than being buried in the string section. She had indeed enjoyed it.

But that had been among the last of her enjoyable evenings. Of course, Sammy knows that, not long after that evening, the priest herself had gone through her own hell, but she can't manage to bring herself to think of that. Her own hell burns too hot. "God, in just one month my life has gone to fuck. Sorry, Mother."

Siobhan waves it off. She would reprimand the woman, but she's more interested in the story and Sammy's emotions are her best way of gauging her.

x

"The school wants me to plead to cheating or they'll expel me. The DA wants me to plead to Manslaughter and if I go to trial they'll probably execute me and I didn't _do _anything – I swear to God I didn't!"

"I believe you. And Washington doesn't have the death penalty."

"No, I know," she admits, morose. "They'll probably just throw away the key."

Siobhan sits forward, emerald eyes probing pale blue. "This isn't like you."

"This is the new me; sulky, depressed. I can't believe my life went to hell like this. A month ago I was on the top of the world. I was heading for graduation, becoming a doctor. I was going to put in for on-the-job training with _Ducky_. Even if I didn't get it, and he told me I likely wouldn't with their budget, I was going to establish I was interested and keep on trying. GW helps with placement but..." Depression stabs at her.

"Then my best friend, who I trusted like I do myself, stabs me in the back - then they say I murdered her. _How_? How did everything go to fuck?"

x

Siobhan considers the woman's language to be very telling. She'd never known Sammy to be the kind of woman to throw about obscenities, and judges that it's because of her upset. It's a good way to read her – if the younger woman doesn't do it too often. "Perhaps you know?"

Sammy stares up at Siobhan. Finally she gives the answer the priest expects that she'd figured out for herself long ago. "It went bad because I trusted, trusted too much and never even gave a second thought. I never gave a first thought. I loved Karen and never gave a thought that she could do this. We shared everything. I never ever thought anything of leaving my stuff in our room, or anywhere else. We studied together, bounced things off one another together, shared our bed and anything–" she stops, realizing she might have said too much.

"You told me, remember?"

"Oh, yeah."

"I don't believe in labels. Lesbian," the priest extends her open left hand to her friend, "bi-sexual, labels aren't people. You were saying?"

"I was saying I _trusted_ her. Because in over three years we've been together it never occurred to me not to trust her. I don't mean right off with the personal stuff; at first it was just the schoolwork and sex. I mean–"

"I understand." Siobhan doesn't want her to be distracted by embarrassment.

"It was - well, it was a - okay, it was a blessing when we found each other. That is, I didn't find her, she found me. I wasn't looking for a partner. I have, well, twice the average choices, you see. But we got together, found a place. We were both working, but it was easier splitting the bills, neither of us had to work and study all the time, you see.

"After the first couple of months privacy didn't matter as much. I trusted her in a little, then a lot, then I just stopped thinking about it. We shared everything and never had a problem. And even sex, she was cool with that I liked guys as much as girls."

x

Sammy shakes her head, rubs tears from her eyes, still unable to believe how things that had been so good had so quickly gone bad.

"I never thought about leaving my school stuff around, we shared notes like we shared pencils, for God's sake! Sorry." Siobhan doesn't wave this one aside. "Anyway, I trusted her with my schoolwork because it never occurred to me not to." She wipes away more tears.

"And then?"

For a long moment Sammy fights emotion, her throat too tight to speak. She has to force the words out. "Professor Bullock, he called - last month - he told me to come to his office after class. I didn't think - I never thought... He said I was cheating. Off _Karen_. He laid everything out, how for since last year I turned everything I had in - days after her, just in time to beat the deadline. _I turn in everything when I'm sure it's perfect_!"

"Yes."

She fights to regain control, not wanting to cry. She reflects that, ten minutes ago, she'd been determined to tell the priest _nothing_. "Well, he said I turn in everything barely in time, in all my classes, not just his - our classes - because I'm _cheating_. That I'm copying her work and turning it in days later, just different enough so it won't be noticed how similar they are.

"He said he checked with the other professors, they checked our work and found the same thing." She stops, tries to fight tears.

"What did you say?"

"I had no idea what to say. I told him it's impossible. I told him someone has to be _wrong_."

"And what did he say?"

"He told me," she wipes the stinging tears away, "he told me to get out, to think about my answer, to come back tomorrow ready to confess. That cheating - I could be _expelled_. That - that I'd never become a doctor - not through GW or anywhere else!"

"And then?"

She tries to fight the emotion back, her voice breaking despite her efforts. "I couldn't think. I was sure - I was being mixed up - with someone else. I am not a _cheater_. I walked home - halfway back - it hit me. It all - made - sense. _Karen _was cheating - off _me_!"

She loses the struggle.

x

Siobhan waits for the young woman to recover. She hands her a handkerchief from her purse; she hadn't before because she wanted to see her face. She waits until Sky can wipe away the last of her tears. "You confronted her?"

"Fucking right I con –! Well, yes, I 'confronted' her. And do you know what she said?"

Siobhan holds herself back from shrugging. "No."

"She'd been to so many parties she didn't have time this time to alter the file enough. Not if she was going to get it in three days before I did."

Faced with so amazing a declaration, Siobhan can think of little to say beyond a stock question. "And how did that make you feel?"

Sammy stares at her, pale blue eyes wide and gleaming. "How did that make me feel? How did that make me _feel_?" She leaps to her feet, her chair crashes to the floor. "_**She's been cheating off me for over a year**_!" Her piercing shriek drives Siobhan out of her own chair.

The guard is at the door; Siobhan presses her back to it by the time the echo dies and both chairs rock to halts on the floor. But the priest turns to the door, raises her hands to keep the man out. "No, it's all right, everything's fine."

"I'm sorry," Sammy gasps, her body trembling as Siobhan turns back. "I didn't mean–"

"It's okay." She uprights her chair, masks lingering apprehension and sits down. The officer eventually steps away and Sammy, still shaking, picks up her chair and collapses into it, slumps forward onto the table.

"I'm sorry, Mother. People say I tend to wear my heart on my sleeve and this mess has ... well," she takes a deep breath, tries to regain her composure. She wipes away tears that threaten again to spill out of control.

"For the past month I've been seeing Karen for the manipulative bitch I never imagined. We were friends - we were _lovers_, Goddamnit! We were partners in studying and I never realized she was using me. She didn't _have _to use me, she was smart enough to pass but it became easier to use me for the hard stuff. She could pass any test you put in front of her. We worked off each other every day so I _know _we both knew everything she had to." She scrubs at her face with the white cloth like she wants to scrape more than tears from it.

"I realized too late why she was having so much free time. It's because she didn't have to obsess over out-of-class work."

"What did you do?"

x

Sammy's shoulders slump; Siobhan hopes it's not in defeat. "I hired a lawyer, scheduled a hearing with the Medical Department heads; that's coming up. And I tried to get her to confess!" The bitterness is enough to tell Siobhan how successful that had been. "I tried to throw her out, but the Goddamn lease is in both our names and my lawyer - he's not a landlord/tenant lawyer but I could only afford one - said I likely couldn't force her out. I could go to court - as if I could manage _two _courts - but that would take as much time as fighting being expelled."

Siobhan already knows what happened next, even if Timmy hadn't told her. "And you two fought."

"Oh _God_, how we fought. Neighbors called the police to get us to quiet down. It never lasted." Sammy has to stop, to rub away tears. "I would scream at her, 'confess', 'get out', 'do it or I'll kill you' - I'll bet _that_ helped me. That last day I was insane. I snapped. All I could see was the last four years of my life, my whole future and career going to shit because of someone I thought was my friend!"

x

Siobhan doesn't want to ask what she knows the agents will. "Did you kill her?"

Sammy looks as though she'd been slapped. "_No_. God, no, I don't know where that gun came from! I swear to God I don't. You'll tell them, won't you?"

"I can't reveal any–"

"No! I _want_ you to tell them! Tell Agent Gibbs, tell Detective Carpenter, tell them everything, every word. I was mad at her - mad enough to kill her, I admit it - but I did _not _kill her! I didn't. I couldn't!"

Siobhan gets up. "I'll tell them."

Sammy leaps up, but in hurrying around the table she trips, falls to her knees, clutches the priest's hand with her shackled ones, unable to fight the stinging tears that trail down her cheeks. "Mother, was I so stupid? Was she _always_ betraying me? Was there nothing in these four years? I loved her - was she using me all the time? Please, Mother, _please _- was she using me _all this time_?"

Siobhan looks down into the crying woman's eyes, wishing she had some other answer than "I'm sorry. I don't know."

xxx

"I told you people I didn't want to get involved!" Ted Glaser throws a cloud of papers at his couch. "What part of 'not get involved' don't you get?"

The grey haired man only says "The 'not' part," They are in Hampton Arms' apartment 9O, down the hall from Sky and Huston's apartment.

His unflappable tone makes Glaser want to recreate the storm. "I didn't see a damned thing."

"We're not asking you to tell what you saw, just what you heard."

'Shit, doesn't this guy listen?' he thinks. 'I don't know anything!' "I _told _the Japanese chick–"

"Chinese."

"Huh?"

"She's Chinese."

"Chinese, Japanese, same thing. I told her I didn't see a thing."

"What do you know?"

"That I'd rather have that chick back, even if her husband does creep me out." 'This guy, Glibs, he's not glib; all business, one track mind. Shit.' "I didn't see anything."

x

Knowing Palmer and DiNozzo hear every word over the open radio, Gibbs doubts the woman will be paying this kid a visit – at least not until he gets his geography and race relations right. He raises his radio. "Palmer."

He's had her change into flat shoes similar to those Sky had worn the day of the murders and to stand outside Sky's apartment. At his word he and Glaser hear running footsteps approach and recede, then the door at the end of the corridor bangs against the wall and muffled steps fade down the flight of steps, cut off when the door rebounds shut.

"What you heard, it sound like that?"

"I'm - I'm not sure."

Gibbs again raises his radio. "DiNozzo."

The footfalls are heavier, louder, the exit door vibrates the wall and the receding thunder is cut off as the door bounces shut.

"More like that."

xx

In the elevator DiNozzo reconsiders the crime. "So it might not've been Sky."

"No, DiNozzo, more like a herd of elephants."

Michelle can't restrain a snicker. DiNozzo glares, adding this to her tally. He won't smack her head as he would McGee, not until he learns the reason for her immunity from Gibbs over these many months. 'Maybe Gibbs is afraid she'll cast a spell on him, except - Gibbs doesn't get afraid.' "The question is, who did it?"

"Babar?" she asks with a grin.

'She's getting close,' he decides. 'One more and, spells or no spells, I'll find out just how immune she is.' "A little less from the Probette, okay? You haven't been on the job long enough to be taking on the big guns."

"We were too willing to accept the evidence," Gibbs declares, wanting to stall the confrontation. "The school, the fights, the gun shop, the delivery, everything fit so nicely. That should've been my first tip."

"But the gun shop clerk, Zang, she ID'd Sky."

"Did she?"


	14. Tangent

Chapter Fourteen  
Tangent

"Who knew you and Huston had problems?" Gibbs asks Sammy Sky. The Interview Room at the Department of Corrections, though reminiscent of NCIS' Interrogation rooms, is air conditioned. In February, on a particularly cool late afternoon, he doesn't see the point. It does nothing for the aroma of fear that disinfectants can't wash away. The young woman before him isn't the first to be scared in this room.

Sammy shrugs. "Who didn't? I wasn't exactly keeping it a secret."

Considering the information on their battles had come first from an 82-year-old neighbor, earwitness to their incendiary battles, and then from building security and MPDC, he reckons the number to be quite high.

"There's only one bed. Who got the couch?"

Her smile is bitter. "Usually the one who lost."

He already has her testimony about when their fights would turn physical. "That'd be you."

"Yep."

"Must've really pissed you off, you paying rent and having to–"

"_Yes_, it pissed me off. But I didn't kill her!"

"Didn't say you did," he tells her, reducing her to astonished silence. "Someone could've heard, or heard about, your battles, decide to kill Huston and lay the blame - figuratively and literally - at your door."

"That's what I've been thinking."

Gibbs has never trusted facts in an investigation that fit together too well, and the clues in this case fit together perfectly. When he doesn't have to work for answers, he wonders who did the work.

x

"Who hates Karen Huston, or you, enough to do this?"

"I don't know. I swear to God - and I know I screwed up on the gun, I forgot about it - I'm sorry - but I swear to God I can't think of a single person that hates me. I can't speak for Karen, but–"

"Try."

"I _am_."

"Because as it is now, Metro has you with motive, method and opportunity. They have the gun that killed Huston–"

"Without my fingerprints on it!"

"Without anyone's. It's been scrubbed clean. Just the way someone trained in forensics would know how to do to cover her tracks." He watches the color drain from Sky's face.

"Shit - whose side are you on?"

"Staff Sergeant Langley's. She was taking a shower when the bullet came through your and her bathroom wall."

"I'm sorry. _No_! I don't mean I'm sorry sorry, I'm sorry she got killed over our problem. That's worse than our fight."

"Did you know her?" Sammy shakes her head, looking more depressed than when they'd begun. "And I'm on Huston's. She was either the target or you were and she got in the way. Who have you had trouble with?"

"No one. That is, no one seems ... well, I kind of keep on people's good side. That is until they get tired of me and get mad that I can't be a little less like Glinda."

"Glinda?"

"The Good Witch of the East? Wizard of Oz?" She gives it up. "Anyway, people sometimes consider me too cheery for their own good, know what I mean? They sort of get mad at me after a while, tell me to go away. Sort of like how you did."

The memory of that hillside above Compton Lake stings - briefly - but they'd eventually reached an accord. Who hasn't?

"What about Huston? Anyone want her to go away?"

"More so than me. Karen could be bitchy. I never realized how bitchy until this past month. At least I never felt it until now. I guess she decided she didn't need me anymore?"

He doesn't have an answer to that - yet. "So you've decided it was all a plot?"

"Wouldn't you?"

"Maybe. I've been married. I've even been divorced. You were married."

She considers, shrugs. "I guess - in a way. I loved her - thought she loved me."

"Maybe she did."

"Maybe. But we never got the chance to get 'divorced'."

x

"Tell me about what happened at the school."

It's clear from her expression that she doesn't want to go into it again, but answers with a sigh. "Professor Bullock called me in that morning, told me GW was going to make me an offer. Confess, redo half the year and I could graduate. My lawyer told me to say no. I said no."

"Good move." Pleading guilty saves the University the inconvenience of hearings, appeals and so on.

"I make them occasionally."

"Then what happened?"

"Mr. Carson - my lawyer - and I went over my testimony again. He told me what to say to their questions, we went over what he would ask me and what I should say. We split up a little later. I went home and said all the wrong things."

"You're sure you couldn't have found someone to stay with?"

"I'm... Well, I thought she should be the one to move. A friend offered me a place and his girlfriend went through the ceiling. I didn't need another problem."

Gibbs doesn't want to get into 'should haves', though her lawyer might. She'd stayed in the apartment with a blossoming enemy.

"So you went home," he prods.

"I was really mad about that plea bargain. I had it out with Karen again. Words to screaming to slapping to punching. Like I said, she kicked my ass."

This he already knew from an earlier interview. "You left. Where did you go?"

"The Eighteenth Street Lounge. I hang out there all the time. I like the atmosphere. People sometimes bring instruments, make their own music. Sometimes I do too. It's less than two blocks from home. I'm not a drinker, I nurse a wine or two."

"You go there a lot?"

She shrugs. "Once, twice a week. People hang out, we can chat, some people play music. A few times I brought my violin, and I'd play a few things. For me it was rehearsing and entertaining. I rehearse every day so I figure I'll share too. And the applause and compliments, well, they don't hurt." She shrugs, tries a smile. That she has to work for one tells Gibbs a lot.

"Do you play there often?"

"No, I have to be in the mood. When I'm rehearsing - that is when I'm seriously rehearsing something, well, let's just say they prefer beer hall to concert hall."

"How long do you usually stay?"

"If I'm there in the day, after school, I leave about five, when the dinner crowd starts coming in. I'm not a big eater, I don't need much," she waves her hand over her slim, five foot two frame, "so I get out of the way. If I'm there in the evening, it's usually late."

"How about this past Tuesday, the thirteenth?"

She thinks about it, her face reflecting curiosity about that particular date. She doesn't ask. "That was during the day, I have early classes - we both do. Did. I didn't want to go home so I stayed until after five, then went for a walk."

"Go there with friends?"

"Occasionally."

"With anyone before the shooting?"

"No. That is, I saw some people I know, but I just couldn't cheer up, if you can believe _that_."

"Can anyone vouch for your being there when you say you were?" She shrugs. "You've got a problem."

"Another one?"

Her tone is dismal, he knows her mood will get worse. "The rifle used to kill Huston–"

"Which I never, ever saw, never bought and never touched!"

"- was found by Metro PD in a dumpster on Eighteenth and M. Want to guess which dumpster?" He watches the color fall out of her face.

"Oh ... holy ... shit."

x

"I need the names of anyone who would want Huston dead."

"Agent Gibbs, I swear to you I've been trying."

"Try harder." When she's stalled, he gives a push. "We're tracking hate groups in DC."

"There's always hate. But it's not like we're targeted by any groups. It's more narrow-minded individuals. I almost stopped going to my church, turned off religion, you know, because of two or three people who can't–. Well, there's one person here, one person there, you know. I get called names, some of them would curl your ..." she glances up at his 'high and tight', "well ..."

"Anyone ever threaten you?"

"Just with the fires of Hell and eternal damnation, but no one ever offered to send me there."

"And Huston?"

"Not that she ever mentioned - and over the past month I didn't care. This month I've been her biggest hate group."

x

"I understand she wasn't discreet about her preferences."

Sammy giggles. "Discreet? She was 'in your face' about it, didn't give a damn who knew it. Me, I kept a lower profile - not that I ever denied it, mind you, but it's _my _business. I don't wear 'Rainbow Coalition' buttons or fly a six color flag and I never once marched in the 'Pride Parade'. She did."

"But her openness made it hard for you to keep a foot in the closet."

Sammy leans forward, her former color and more back in her face. "Agent Gibbs, I did not _ever _set any foot in any closet. I am not the least bit ashamed about anything and I'll slap the face off anyone who implies different. But it is _my _business who I date and what I do with him _or _her!"

He's happy with her declaration, having little love for wafflers. "And you have no idea who may have had any run-ins with Huston?"

Sammy's anger, never long lived, cools. "No, I'm sorry, I don't. I'll be honest, Mr. Lie Detector, this month I might have offered to help them."

x

"You dated other people beside Huston?"

Sammy's shields are up at full power. "What does that matter?"

"Did Huston date?"

"She had friends. One or..."

He sees the realization in her pale blue eyes. "What?"

"No. No, that's insane. She - she _wouldn't_."

"Who wouldn't?"

"It's insane - it just wouldn't–"

Gibbs' hand on the metal table is a blast of thunder. "NAME!"

"_NICOLA CHAPMANi_!"

x

Gibbs' quiet question underscores the sudden silence. "Who's Nicola Chapman?"

"She's in GW," Sammy says when she recovers from the fright, hand pressed to slow her slamming heart. "She and Karen have been going together for a couple of months."

"But not you?"

Though Sammy's face colors, it's not with embarrassment. "Agent Gibbs, I don't know where you get your ideas but lesbians and bis are not automatically promiscuous. I am _not _into threesomes."

Rather than being taken aback, Gibbs is pleased this time by her heat. Better this than either waffling or the lost and thoughtless denial.

"So Chapman and Huston had the relationship?"

"They _did_, but after a couple of months they were fighting almost as much as Karen and I did."

"Why?"

"Nicola wanted it to be just the two of them, a monogamous relationship. Karen liked to play the field. She wasn't into being tied down." She smiles; Gibbs is sure it's for a mental image that helps nothing.

"Four months ago they started having words over it, then more. Nicola wanted her to move in, or vice versa, but Karen wasn't that into her. I mean, she was into her, but not that much."

"How did Chapman feel about that?"

"The more she tried to firm things up, the less Karen did. Then Karen and I had our falling out and I didn't care what that bitch's relationship issues were. I simply didn't give a damn."

"Chapman wanted Huston to move out too?"

"She fought a lot, wanted it to just be them."

"And if you were out of the picture?" It's simple to read Sky's sudden horrified realization reflected in her eyes, and he suspects that she's seeing the end of the first conversation they'd had in Interrogation...

ooo

He'd glared at her, exasperated because he'd known her to be too quick-witted to be so obtuse. 'I don't know if you shot Huston or not,' he'd said to her. 'But we measured Huston and ran the bullet's trajectory back from your bathroom wall to where she was standing. Know what we found?'

'No,' she'd said sharply, defiant. 'What?'

'The bullet went through the bottom of her lung. It wasn't a fatal shot. Oh, she died, but from blood loss and blood filling her lung. Ducky says she lived for about a minute or two before she bled out _and _drowned.'

He'd watched the color drain from her face. Despite her experience, despite her feelings, Huston had been a friend. He'd intended to distress her more.

'Her arms are longer than yours, so you'd be standing a little more to the left. If _you'd _been the one to open that door, that bullet would've gotten you,' he'd pointed to a spot between her breasts, 'right here.'

ooo

"Oh my God," Sammy breathes.

"It might've become easier to get you out of the way. But if that was the plan, it didn't work."

"_No_."

He's not going to let her escape into denial. "Describe her."

Sky is so shaken she can barely think. "Blonde, like me. Karen likes - liked - blondes. Blue eyes, taller than me ..."

"But enough like you that a stranger could confuse you?"

"I - no - no, she's taller."

"But if someone just saw your picture after meeting her?"

Sammy shakes her head. "I don't know. I guess. Possibly. Maybe."

"The gun shop clerk ID'd you. Could she have ID'd Chapman?"

"I ... guess so," Sky says doubtfully. "Maybe. I don't know. _I _don't think there's that much resemblance, but I suppose it _could _be possible."

"I need to know where to find her."

"Karen'll have that in her address book, her laptop, somewhere."

x

Gibbs gets up, goes to the door, knocks for the officer standing outside to open it. But when the door opens Gibbs doesn't leave. He returns to Sammy and his hand comes out fast, slaps the back of her head.

Sky stares in wide-eyed astonishment as he turns and leaves. Then she surprises the outraged guard by grinning the first truly happy smile she can remember in days.

x

At the impact, her mind had flashed back to her conversation with Abby Sciuto that first evening she'd visited the Forensics Lab. The conversation had eventually touched on Gibbs' style of waking up his team. She'd seen him waking Agent DiNozzo and had been surprised it wasn't a unique incident.

'He'd better not hit me!' she'd exclaimed.

'You don't understand. It's like an initiation. In NCIS, you just don't _belong _until Gibbs has slapped you.'

xxx

Gibbs didn't mind the time consuming drive back to the Navy Yard, there's too much to think about. It's nearly 1600, nominal quitting time, but no one's going home on time today.

"McGee, Huston's laptop mirrored?" he asks as he enters the bullpen.

"Err, yes." It'd been one of the first things he'd done.

"Bring it up."

"Okay," he says, trying to catch up. "What am I looking ...? I'll know it when I find it."

"Everything there is on Nicola Chapman. Palmer, I want a warrant to search her place. Bloody clothes, ammo, anything else that'll fit into a jewelry box." The need to search the maximum number of places usually requires that something very small be added to the affidavit. "You've got thirty minutes."

"That's imposs yes sir," she finishes without a break, turning to her computer. Fortunately, since getting used to working for Gibbs, she'd created templates for all sorts of rush warrant affidavits, as well as cultivating some high power judicial friendships.

x

"DiNozzo, what about John Langley?"

"Kevin Lamb's team visited him about two hours ago. He was sober. They say he talked about nothing but his wife. No enemies, her letters and emails said she got along well with her Unit. As much as a DI _can _get along with anybody but another DI." As Gibbs had pointed out, Drill Instructors aren't there to make friends.

"Janet Levy says she thinks he's pretty lost. He's taking his wife's death very hard. Apparently she was the strong one. Lisa DuBois says she thinks Langley's hanging on by a thread."

"Suicidal?"

"They think not, but people can fool you. He's not very open. They think he can do with some regular visits from Grief Shrinks."

Gibbs truly doubts Lamb or either woman on his team expressed it in quite that way. "Set it up."

"Already done, boss. Got someone heading out for 1800."

x

McGee has an address for the to-then-unknown character in this drama and is gathering more from cyberspace.

"Come on, McGee," Gibbs pushes, "you've had that thing up for three minutes."

"A record for McTron," DiNozzo quips.

"There's a lot of email chatter between them," Tim says, not looking away from the screen. "A lot."

"Just give us the highlights."

He refrains from pointing out that he hasn't had time to find the lowlights. "I'm working my way back through the timestamps, enough to know there's a lot of emotional content."

"What _kind _of emotional content?"

Tim glances up. "The bad kind." He reads as fast as he can, knowing he's used up his year's allotment of stalls. "There's anger, jealousy, a lot of words you're not allowed to say on late night cable TV ..."  
"Any threats?"

"I caught something having to do with a paring knife and Sammy's–"

"Gear up." The general command sparks an flurry of organized activity. McGee directs the data to his PDA, intending to pursue the search en route.

"Palmer, you got that warrant?"

"Thank the Goddess," she says, pulling a piece of paper from the fax machine.

"No."

xx

Michelle and Tim ride in Gibbs' car, Ziva follows with Tony in his. "For an open-and-shut case," Ziva grouses, "this is having a lot of newly opening doors."

"I thought you like it when cases get interesting."

"Another blonde bimble I do not need."

"Whoa," Tony is as impressed by her heat as mystified by it. "Where's that coming from?"

"I do not know what you mean."

"Yes, you do. I thought all this time you were jealous of Sammy."

"Please, give me a–"

"But that's not it at all, is it?"

x

Actually, Ziva had had her jealous moments - weeks - notably because of DiNozzo's very obvious attentions toward the woman, but: "They are unnatural."

"What, girls who play with girls? You as much as - no, wait, you _did _drop hints about that when you teased me the day we met."

"I made a mistake. It is not so funny now. And I have no interest in your interest in poultrytude."

Ziva's command of English usually suffers with her emotions. Tony's delighted with the insight, but this time he barely needs it. "Pulchritude." She doesn't answer. "You don't like her because she plays in both the batter's cage _and _in the dugou–"

"_Enough_! Let us just get this over with."

"Certainly." His quiet doesn't last long. "You sure you don't want to be the one to bust her?"

Ziva's reply is a deadly glare.

x

When they arrive at the apartment house north of Stanton Park, Gibbs divides his team. "Ziva, the back alley."

"Suits me," she says, not delaying moving to the back while hoping the woman will stage a desperate attempt.

"We'll go up front, DiNozzo with me on point, McGee backup, Palmer at the door." The intent is to stagger the resistance, cut off escape at various points. In that formation the four make their way to the third floor of the four story walkup.

DiNozzo, not relishing the lead, wrinkles his nose at the stale smell. He and Gibbs take the door, McGee a few feet back. When the three men are in the apartment, Palmer will block the door.

Their quarry has doors at the head of the stairs and the base of the next flight, both numbered three. There were three mailboxes downstairs. "Front and back doors," Gibbs says quietly. "McGee, take the back door; Palmer, backup this one."

x

Gibbs and DiNozzo take positions on either side of the front door and he spares Palmer a warning glare.

"I wasn't going to say anything," she whispers. There was a time she've driven him to distraction with legal rules and regulations he was only going to ignore. He's gratified she's learned good lessons under his tutelage.

"FEDERAL AGENTS! OPEN UP!" The demand is only a half-second before his kick blasts the door open, knocks it off its upper hinge. Gibbs and DiNozzo glimpse a rapidly moving body rush from the living room, vanish to their right through a door toward the rear of the apartment. DiNozzo charges after a blonde woman through two rooms into the bedroom and a right turn.

Gibbs isn't behind him, having doubled back into the stairwell as DiNozzo reaches the room in time to see the rear door fly open. McGee, backed up by Palmer and then Gibbs, is already in position to intercept.

x

Nicola Chapman bursts out of her apartment to find the stairs to the fourth floor and the hallway to the downward stairs blocked by a tall man in a tan overcoat. She kicks him in his groin. The man slams to the floor and she vaults over him. Her path is blocked by a smaller black haired woman. Before she can dodge, the other woman's foot comes out hard.

Agony explodes in Chapman's crotch. She shrieks and crashes to the floor. Clutching her groin, she writhes on the floor only two feet from the man she'd kicked.

x

Tim wishes he were dead. Everything inside him just wants to get out and find a hole to crawl into. 'Just one bullet. Just one between the eyes. Please. Someone. Just one bullet. Please.'

Tony crouches down beside him. "I feel your pain, Probie."

"No, you don't," he groans.

Tony looks beyond him. "She does."

Tim manages to turn his head, while cradling his battered testicles, praying they'll feel normal in some decade to come. He can barely make out, through slitted eyes, the woman who writhes beside him on the narrow landing.

"Good."


	15. Chapman

Chapter Fifteen  
Chapman

Gibbs, having no sympathy for a suspect who assaulted one of his people, signals Michelle and Tony. Each takes an arm, drag Nicola Chapman into the apartment and deposit her, not gently, onto her couch.

"When you're able to talk," Gibbs informs her dispassionately as she clutches herself, "we have some questions."

"Bastard," Chapman grits through clenched teeth, "I'm suing. That chink cunt kicked me in the pus–"

"You'll recover," he tells her with deceptive mildness. "Karen Huston won't."

"I had nothing to do with that," she moans, still apparently in great pain, or in Gibbs' opinion playing up the injury. He's isn't sure if it's real or dramatized, and with two dead women and a possibly innocent one standing accused, he doesn't care. Justice delayed is justice denied, so he considers Palmer's act well timed.

"What do you know about Huston's death?" he asks, keeping the focus on the investigation rather than Chapman's alleged discomfort.

"It's all over the news, all over the campus."

'Reporters,' he thinks. 'They should all be boiled in their ink.' "Is that why you ran?"

"I _ran _because a bunch of maniacs kicked in my door."

"Not a bunch."

She glares up at him. "I'm hurt. I need a doctor."

His first thought is that she'll need a lawyer, but he has no intention of suggesting that. "You'll recover."

"You're a bastard."

"See, you're getting to know me." He sees she is recovering. Her pain was sharp but the effect is localized and probably not quite as debilitating as McGee's.

Tim is being helped into the living room by DiNozzo and Palmer. Each supports an arm upon their shoulders. McGee lists dangerously to starboard under the uneven support, but he makes it into a chair. Gibbs doesn't think much of his color, but there's a suspect to question.

Ziva enters through the unhinged door which also lists to starboard, and gives the woman slumped upon the couch a deadly glare. Gibbs considers Chapman lucky to have confronted Palmer rather than David. She might not be capable of answering questions had she angered the Mossad officer as she had Palmer.

"This is a warrant to search your apartment for anything that can tie you to Huston's murder." He tosses the folded sheet onto her lap and DiNozzo, David and Palmer immediately commence the search.

x

Sky's estimation of the resemblance between herself and Chapman had been biased and shortsighted. Gibbs can see enough similarity between the two to give adequate insight into Huston's tastes and credence to his theory. Long and straight blonde hair, blue eyes, similar complexion and delicate features...

Chapman is definitely taller but he can see where the Sporting Goods store clerk Colette Zang could confuse them after a single encounter two weeks ago. Zang had ID'd a picture, but had Chapman signed the register?

"Tell me about Karen Huston."

"Fuck you. There's nothing to tell."

"You say a lot in your e-mails."

"You have no right to be reading my mail! Who the fuck do you think you are?"

"Federal Officers investigating a murder. You ever been to the Singh Tsong Sporting Goods in Virginia?"

"You know what? Fuck you. Fuck you! I don't have to answer any of your questions so fuck you!"

xxx

In the Major Case Bullpen, at 1800, answers are more readily forthcoming. The search parameters Tim McGee had set up on Huston's laptop have yielded considerable results. Unfortunately, while some parts of the case have progressed, others don't run as smoothly.

"Damn it, LeeJay, I don't believe you." Detective Lieutenant Jeffrey Carpenter, seated opposite Gibbs at his desk, keeps his voice low but penetrating. What the words lack in volume, they more than make up for in intensity. "You busted a suspect in a civilian's murder without me."

"Haven't arrested her yet, Carp," Gibbs is unfazed by his friend's fire. "Just went down for a chat. Her stonewalling got her here but I don't want her. She's all yours."

"After the fact." He doesn't bother to say he wouldn't have taken Chapman into custody yet, but would've watched her, gathered a better picture. "But it's too late for 'woulda - coulda - shoulda', let's see what you _do _have."

It'd been agreed between Gibbs and the Metro Homicide Detective that the primary focus would be the murder of Karen Huston. Tragic as was the accidental death of Wendy Langley, the principal penalty would accrue on the attack on Huston. Langley's 'collateral' death would be construed as some degree of 'manslaughter', and a good defense lawyer might whittle that down. Premeditated murder carries a far worse penalty than involuntary manslaughter or - God forbid - attempted assault.

"McGee, what've you got?"

Tim looks up to find himself fixed by dual stares. Fortunately, he's had time to formulate an excellent answer.

"There's a lot of email saved on Huston's hard drive, and more stuff in her diary. The latter was encrypted with a very good code–"

"Before I have to come over there, McGee."

"Oh, please," Lieutenant Carpenter says, half out of the chair, "allow me."

"Nope," Gibbs denies, "this is in-house."

"Only certain people are allowed to slap McGee," Ziva says, "and _I _am in the front of the line."

x

McGee knows all too well that Ziva has never forgiven him for his betrayal of her feelings or how he'd broken off their admittedly brief, whirlwind relationship. Never wanting to address that point again, particularly in public, he ignores her. That tempestuous end of their working relationship is something that can be talked around but probably will never be resolved.

Abby has come to accept his future with Shav and to establish her own relationship with the priest; he doubts Zee ever will.

So rather than thinking about the irresolvable, he focuses on helping another friend. "There are a lot of discussions of Chapman moving in, possibly pushing Sammy out, otherwise for Huston to move in with her. But as Sammy told you, the more insistent Chapman became, the more distant Huston grew."

"Sounds like they were setting up for their own 'Basic Instinct' remake," DiNozzo sums up.

"More truth than you know. Huston even refers to that in her diary, not liking finding herself in the Michael Douglas role."

"Can't say I blame her, though that kitchen scene would've been something to see."

"You've got one on account, DiNozzo," Gibbs warns, giving lie to his declaration 'no fun if you know it's coming'.

"Yes, boss."

"What else, McGee?"

"A lot, actually. Huston felt she was fighting a war on two fronts, one wanted her and the other didn't, but I see no regrets. She as much as admitted in her diary having caused both situations - which could help Sammy case if it's admis–" he looks over and sees Gibbs glare. "Yes, sir. Well, the situation with Chapman kept getting further and further out of control."

"What I do not understand," Ziva bites, "is Huston's insistence upon remaining in the Hampton Arms when it was becoming a whore zone." Several of the agents look at her, not certain she'd said what they'd thought they'd heard. "I mean, if Sammy wanted her out and Chapman wanted her in, why not just do it?"

McGee tries to ignore the phrasing, even while seeing that DiNozzo is about to make some choice observation, despite Gibbs' warning. He speaks quickly to head it off.

"She considered it a power thing. She'd taken her association with Sammy as far as she'd intended. She'd planned to end it at graduation if Sammy hadn't caught on. Sammy, we all know, is no fighter. Huston simply dragged out the inevitable breakup, thinking Sammy would capitulate rather than live in the same apartment under those circumstances."

"She didn't know Sky as well as she thought," Gibbs concludes. "So whose idea was the gun?"

"Well, Huston never mentions it. She never gave any indication she thought Sammy would be driven beyond fists either."

"And Chapman?"

"No clue either. If it's Chapman's plot to get Sammy out of the picture or get revenge on Huston for her rejections, there's no e-mail about it."

x

Gibbs decides to check Ducky's insights when he reads these exchanges. In the meantime: "DiNozzo, bring up Sky's and Chapman's IDs." A few moments later Sky's NCIS ID appears on the plasma screen together with Chapman's DC driver's license.

"What about Sky's driver's license?"

Seconds later Sky's license replaces the document which she'd used when she'd worked with Ducky for three weeks in the fall.

The poses and expressions of both women are forced and self-conscious. Carpenter sums up their thoughts: "Sisters or cousins?"

xxx

When Leroy Jethro Gibbs and Jeffery Carpenter enter Interrogation One, Nicola Chapman glares at them from her seat behind the table. Seated beside her is a tall black man whose suit probably costs more than a week's wages of either investigator. Clarence Rogers is familiar to them both. Too familiar.

"I've advised my client not to answer any of your questions unless you intend to charge her," the man announces before Gibbs can reach his seat.

"We were hoping not to have to," Gibbs says as he sits down, placing a file folder on the table. Carpenter stands beside him. "But if you insist, how does 'Murder One' sound?"

"You don't have enough evidence to support that."

"Maybe not yet," he glances up at Carpenter, then back to Rogers, "but the night's young."

"You're out of your jurisdiction."

"You're right." Gibbs vacates the seat, Carpenter slips smoothly into his place.

"This is Metro Homicide jurisdiction," the detective declares, "and if you insist I _will _charge your client. For now, I hope we can resolve things before that becomes necessary."

Rogers and Chapman exchange a glance. Rogers nods.

Chapman sighs, resigned. "What'da you want to know?" Her manner is quite different from her explicative-filled outbursts of two hours ago.

"According to Karen Huston, you've been trying for several weeks to move in to make more of your relationship."

"I loved her - a lot more than that bitch Sky ever did."

Being well informed of Jordan Hampton's autopsy findings, Carpenter can ask: "And if Sky were to be put out of the way?"

"Don't answer that."

Carpenter isn't put out by the interruption. He'd expected it. He'd thrown out the point to let Chapman think about the placement of the rifle bullet. Though it had been low in Huston's lung, it would have gone right through Sky's heart.

"Must've been quite a shock for the door to open and you realize you shot the wrong woman."

The three men watch the color fall out of Chapman's face. Clarence Rogers is a word faster.

"What is your evidence linking my client to this death?"

Carpenter wishes they'd at least lifted a fingerprint from Huston's apartment, or even any print at all from the weapon, or the bullet, or the...

"Huston's own words in her diary. Your client wasn't very subtle in her own feelings regarding Samantha Sky being in the way either."

"Did my client at any time threaten to kill either woman?" There is no point in lying to hold her. "That's all. If you have no evidence linking my client to this murder, we're leaving now."

"No!" Chapman snaps, "I'm not going out like this with this hanging over my head!"

"Ms. Chapman..."

"No." She glares at Carpenter. "I didn't do anything."

Yesterday he'd stood in this room and listened to Sky say those same words with equal conviction. "We have a witness who ID'd you purchasing the gun with a fake ID saying you were Samantha Sky."

"Fuck you! There's no such thing!"

"That's all, gentlemen." Rogers rises, grasps Chapman's elbow to pull her up as well. "Charge or we walk."

Despite Carpenter's assured tone, his declaration had been an empty bluff designed to rattle Chapman's nerves. He has, however, nothing with which to stop the man from escorting their chief suspect out of the room.

Gibbs, however, has held a card. "There's still her assault on a Federal Agent."

Rogers and Gibbs mirror glares. "I'll have her on bail before the swelling goes down."

"Knock yourself out. She stays."

Chapman is escorted to Sky's former Holding Cell. She and her lawyer can discuss tactics there. Gibbs had only played this card to keep her from vanishing until evidence - one way or another - can be cemented.

When they're gone, Carpenter stands, faces Gibbs directly. "We need that evidence by morning. What about Zang? _Did _she blow the ID?"

Gibbs pulls out his cell phone as they leave the room.

xx

When the investigators step into the bullpen, McGee announces "Boss, I have Colette Zang's home address."

"Good. One more thing we need," Gibbs says as he and Carpenter reach for their coats. "I want both those licenses, but with Sky's name on both. Keep height and other description, but change the name from Chapman to Sky."

"You got it."

While they wait, Ziva, sensing the end of reasonable work for tonight and a chance to have a Friday evening, reaches for her own coat. "I suggest McGee be the one to interview her." When Gibbs and Carpenter turn to her, she elaborates. "She already wants to have sex with him."

Gibbs turns to the embarrassed agent. "Is that so, McGee?"

"Well, I wouldn't say that - exactly - just she ..."

"Okay, you and Palmer."

"_Why me_?" The words leapt out of her mouth before she could stop them. She already has her hand on her jacket, her mind on getting home to Jimmy, even knowing she must come in Saturday morning. She's relieved, however, that Gibbs' answer is only one word ... and she hates hearing it.

"Chaperone."

x

The agents and detective are on their way to the elevator before the outraged woman can think of a word of protest. She turns on McGee, who flinches at the fire in her eyes. She snatches the papers from his hand, sees Zang's address. The Virginia address is far to the opposite side of Seven Corners. She glares up at McGee.

"It'll take 'till nine to get there!"

"I'm sorry?" Looking down into her blazing eyes, he hadn't thought it would work.

"You had _better _need a chaperone or you're going to need a witch who knows a _re_fertility spell."


	16. Signing Off

Chapter Sixteen  
Signing Off

When Tim McGee and Michelle Palmer reach the heavily wooded suburb of Seven Corners, Virginia at twenty-one-twelve, Michelle's rage has cooled. It'd taken multiple abject apologies from Tim and a trip-long phone conversation with Jimmy before she'd regained enough of her balance to speak to him again.

They're back on good terms by the time Tim parks on a black road before a blue one-story wooden bungalow, whose porch light hardly reaches into the car. He'd already called, they're expected and he intends the visit to be very brief.

The house is illuminated by the single light without, a lit bay window within and starlight. Ceaseless chirrups of crickets provide the background chorus.

"Only one person inside, right over there," Michelle points to a spot beyond the window's left as they approach the door. Tim stops short, turns and looks down at her but she offers up a sweet smile. "Looks like you get lucky, or _would _except that now I do have to play chaperone - so no _way_ do you get lucky."

"You know, you freak me out when you do that."

She grins up at him. "Keeps you honest. Gibbs said I'm to be your chaperone, keep you from falling into any holes."

"I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about–" he gestures vaguely, lost for words, points to the spot she'd indicated, "_that_."

She'd known what he'd meant. "It's just listening, you could do it too." His 'yeah, right' expression only makes her smile more. "You feel the life, feel the emotions, feel the essence. It's just a matter of tuning yourself into the universe, being in touch with the Goddess."

"I can't do that and you know it."

"Not 'can't', 'won't'. It's so simple. I taught Jimmy. I could teach you."

"Can we just get done here first?"

"Your wish is my command, sahib."

He glares down at her, then turns and resumes the trek to the door, more shaken by the allusion to genies than witches. With his relationship with Shav, at times even uncertain of his own place in her scheme of things, he doesn't want to think of getting in touch with any 'goddess'.

When they reach the door he glances again at her; her teasing smile hints she can read his mind despite her many claims that she cannot. He tries to push her out of his mind.

At his knock the door opens, and at the delight on Colette Zang's face, Tim wonders just how bad his night will get.

x

"Agent McGee, I'm so happy you've come."

Her tone is so broad, her innuendo so clear that for a moment he's stricken speechless. The scent of perfume in the air speaks to him of hopes he must dash.

"We're sorry to disturb you at home," Michelle says, not interested in a long game with her husband waiting patiently at home, "but we need you to look at two pictures."

Zang might respond to the question but her eyes, her voice, say she perceives no one but Tim. "Did you come all this way just to show me some dirty pictures?" she chides. She's willing to look at anything Tim wants to show her.

"Err, just come - some I - ID photos."

"Well, why not come in and let me see what you've got?"

"Sorry," Michelle says in her most businesslike manner, "we have another appointment."

"Okay." The life drops from Zang's voice. "Let's see."

Tim hands her the printed copies of the two driver's licenses bearing Samantha Sky's information. Only the photos and heights differ.

"What is this?"

"Can you tell us which of those women bought the Winchester rifle two weeks ago?"

Zang hands the papers back, Sammy's picture on top. "This one."

"You're sure?"

"_Yes_, I'm sure."

He brings up the other one with Nicola Chapman's picture. "It couldn't be this woman?"

"Absolutely not." She points to Sky's picture. "_That _woman is the Samantha Sky that was in my shop. I don't know who that other Samantha Sky is."

"Thank you."

"Okay." They start to turn away. "Oh, and Agent McGee?"

"Yes?"

"The next time you come out here in the middle of the night," she glances only briefly at Michelle, "come alone."

xxx

Director Jennifer Shepherd has been at her desk for less than half an hour and looks up from her morning correspondence when her door opens. There's only one person who would - who could - by-pass Cynthia Sumner. She's surprised when Gibbs, rather than approaching her desk, goes directly to the low table at the far right. There he opens the first of several white bags and begins unloading food.

"Oh Lord." She glances at the clock before leaving her desk. It really is 9:14 on a Saturday morning. The sunlight streaming in through her window had been very convincing, but there's Military time and there's Gibbs time. If not for his on-going case, his team wouldn't be in today. If not for a desk full of work... "To what do I owe this crack-of-dawn surprise?"

He continues taking out and dividing helpings of medium rare steak, mashed potatoes, corn and assorted fixings. "Hey, can't a guy sit down to dinner with his old partner without having to have an ulterior motive?"

"Dinner." She looks over the impressive volume of food. The Cabernet is a nice touch. "Are we going to be eating for that long?"

"You gave me grief last time about your digesting all those calories before bed. I'm just giving you plenty of time. But if you don't want it..." He starts to move the potatoes back to the bag.

"No, no, I didn't say that." She removes her high-heeled shoes, gets comfortable at the low table, determined to enjoy the impromptu picnic. But for all their banter she knows, as she reaches for the wine bottle, that he does indeed have an ulterior motive.

"It's this case," she concludes, doesn't have to guess that much. "Sharing with Metro?" Homicide Detective Lieutenant Jeffery Carpenter is the only non-NCIS investigator other than Tobias Fornell or Hollis Mann with whom Gibbs has a civil working relationship.

"Eat your steak."

It's been a long, frustrating morning following a restless night. When he'd gotten McGee and Palmer's report he'd been compelled to order the case dropped against their most likely alternate suspect. He hadn't been joking in referring to this meal as dinner.

x

Shepherd cuts off and eats a piece; the steak is indeed quite good, and she wonders where he'd gone to collect the dinner at this hour. But much as she's enjoying the diversion, she has a desk full of work across the room and Cynthia can't hold her calls all morning. "What is it?"

He gives her a look she's seen from him thousands of times in their long careers. "This one has me going in circles." He holds out his right hand. "I have three pounds of evidence that Sky's guilty," he holds out the left, "and two and three quarters that she's being set up."

"Well, what does your gut tell you?"

"That if she is being set up it's a good job, good enough to convince Carpenter. He's ready the close the book. Huston's the primary victim, Langley's down as collateral damage so far as Metro's concerned. If not for her this would be Metro's case free and clear and 'case closed'."

"But you don't believe it?" she concludes, mixing some potatoes, corn and gravy.

He holds his right hand out again. "Eye and earwitnesses have her guilty, but one of the earwitness' testimonies doesn't hold up with the other's. The eyewitness, the sporting goods clerk, positively ID'd her. The Winchester would've nearly knocked her on her ass. Am I to believe Sky would buy a high power magnum rifle when she has a .22 she can slip in her pocket, have the weapon shipped and signed for by her building's Security guards, then she signs to her it from them, use it and then dump it at a place she visits a couple times a week?"

"She never seemed stupid." Shepherd takes some more wine.

"I worked with her nearly a month. She's smart. McGee pulled her records, she's got a 3.89 GPA from GWU. Ducky would take her on if he had the budget. Get ready for him to come to you some day."

She shakes her head; three people in Autopsy isn't in this year's cards. "What does Ducky say?"

"He doesn't believe it either. She can't be both as bright as the girl - woman - we worked with and stupid enough to sign several times and dump the rifle at her hangout." He shakes his head. "Several witnesses give her motive - which she admits. Method and opportunity covered. She's in DCDC without bail because Metro's case is that good." He takes a few bites, she doesn't interrupt.

"Ducky says there's nothing wrong with her head," he eventually continues. "She tells a story good enough to convince me - " he holds out his right hand "- and three pounds of evidence says she did it."

"Schizophrenic?"

"Ducky says no. But she admits to a motive which the evidence supports. The only other suspect was cleared by the eyewitness that sold Sky the gun." He shakes his head.

"Glad I've got a desk job."

"You and Marti were my first, best partners." He wishes he had the late Martine Joswig to consult. They, under Mike Franks, had been a formidable quartet. "What does _your _gut say?"

"That Jeffrey Carpenter moved too fast. There's too much in this case that doesn't fit."

"Yeah."

"What does Abby think?"

"She's been trying every way to get to see her." He'd said 'no' to her every attempt but: "Maybe I should put the two of them together."

xxx

"What've you got, Abs?" Gibbs asks the white-coated scientist when he enters her lab at 10:30. Abby turns, her eyes like twin spotlights.

"Gibbs, you're just in time. Your Abbydar's working perfectly, you always show up just when I have something."

"So what'da'you have?"

"Three hours sleep after planning the hinkiest bridal shower since J-Lo ha–"

"Too much unimportant information, Abs."

She takes a step back, plays the appalled-outraged card. "Gibbs, I'm surprised at you. The bridal shower is the most important part of the wedding. Sometimes it even lasts longer than the marriage."

"They did with me. Or are you trying to hex McGee's?"

"Bite your lingual member."

Gibbs isn't sure if that's supposed to be obscene or not and won't ask. "I thought you were on the outside of this thing."

"Don't be silly; Siobhan and I made up longago. I'd _been _jealous, but everything's cool. In fact, Michelle and I are running the party together."

He's heard legendary tales but "A goth and a witch throwing a bridal shower for a priest. That's scary."

"I'll bring you pictures."

"Thanks."

"You know," she considers, looking him from head to foot, "you should come."

He's not sure what that once-over implied but does know it's "Women only, Abs."

"But we still haven't found someone to jump out of the cake wearing a Speedo!" His glare is all she'd hoped for. "Perhaps not, you probably have plans."

"What've you got on the _case_?"

She smiles in infinite satisfaction. "I've _solved _the case," she announces.

x

"Good for you." He knows that, frantic as she'd been, there had to be a good reason for her tangent. He'd allowed it while he'd taken a moment's mental vacation in Sciutoville, but now it's time for answers. Whatever she has for him, he's sure it'll be good.

"Oh, I don't mean I solved it solved it, but I know Sammy's innocent."

"You said that before." That was before they'd taken, and had to release, Nicola Chapman.

"I know it. But now I know it. I mean I know it know it."

Her certainty is gratifying if grammatically atrocious. She seems to think the case is over; he wants her to convince him. "Tell me."

x

She holds up two plastic encased papers, the second is the gun shop record for the Winchester. He'd used it to drive a nail into Sky's coffin, then the nail had come out, then gone back in again. Abby leads him to her main 'display table', sets both papers down. Then she brings over other plastic protected papers, lays them out in particular order on the table.

The papers constitute a wide variety but share one thing in common: they're all signed by Sky. They include Christmas and New Years cards, official NCIS papers she had signed when she'd come on as Ducky's trainee, receipts for her checks from Payroll and other assorted papers. There's also the photo of her signature for the package room from Hampton Arms when she'd allegedly picked up the rifle.

Abby, standing beside him, faces the table. "Gibbs, you may now smack me." He turns to her, not quite believing it. "Go on, I deserve it."

She obviously intends to say nothing more until he does hit her. She winces, eyes clenched shut, shoulders hunched, steeled for the massive blow. The touch he gives her barely moves her hair. "Thanks."

"Welcome. Why'd I smack you?"

"I told you, Gibbs, I deserve it. I'm the scientist, I'm supposed to catch all the hinky stuff you guys–"

"Abby, before I'm not sorry anymore, what did you find?"

"Well, it was Ducky who gave me the clue, way back when Sammy was here. You know he likes to tell these little anecdotes–"

"_Abby_."

"It's relevant, Gibbs. Look, here's a paper Sammy signed when she started with us. To be vetted, she had to sign a lot of them. See?"

"Samantha Sky."

"I had Payroll send me her check receipts." It's a page per week per department. Forensic Pathology only has two names on each sheet. She waves her hand over the three week's worth of signatures.

"Sammy Sky." He'd like to see her point. She'd better make it soon.

"And the cards from the holidays?"

"Sammy."

x

Abby turns to him, the better to emphasize her point. "Ducky told me Sammy doesn't _use _'Samantha' unless she has to, like if she's signing an official document. She told him it's to keep peace in her family that she dropped 'Samantha' years ago."

"Why would she do that?"

"I'm glad you asked, Gibbs."

"You'd better tell me."

"Seems her father had this really big thing - maybe eight inches? - for Elizabeth Montgomery. He named Sammy after the witch character on 'Bewitched'. Mom didn't know until way later, like when Sammy was in her teens. When Sammy found out what the sudden series of fights were all about, she dropped Samantha faster than ABC."

She points to the NCIS documents. "She'll sign 'Samantha' on official papers because it's her legal name, everything else is 'Sammy'. I checked with Ducky, he made her fill out the Requisition forms - you know how he _loves _doing requisition forms." She points to each of these plastic encased papers. "'Sammy Sky' every time."

"She signed the gun shop receipt 'Samantha'. That was a legal document."

"_But_ she signed the Package Log 'Samantha'. Who signs their full name for receipts? When I get UPS, I just scribble Ab-whatever Sci-something."

She points to the signature on the package log, then the other signatures above and below it. On every line tenants signed for deliveries and most are illegible scrawls. Written as plainly and with as much flourish as on the gun shop receipt are the words 'Samantha Sky'.

"Notice anything?"

With the gun shop receipt and Package Log side by side, it's hard to miss it. Of all the documents where Sammy had signed her full name, there are considerable variations in the signatures - except between the gun shop and package room signatures. These are too similar to be casual writing.

"If I gathered any ten things you signed," Abby tells him, "you could see differences between every one of them, sometimes neat, sometimes careless, sometimes rushed. Not so these."

"If someone practiced the signature until they got it right–"

"They'd be careful using it and keep doing it right."

He takes her shoulders, turns her around and kisses the back of her head.

x

The lab glass door opens and admits DiNozzo, who wisely says nothing about this back-headed kiss.

"Boss, do you have Life Insurance?" This greeting earns him peculiar looks.

"Why, DiNozzo, you thinking about offing me?"

"No, I'm good. I just wanted to know how much Life Insurance you have."

The look isn't quite a glare, just a warning to get to the point of this strange question. He's had enough preamble from Abby. "The Corps, NCIS, I have a private one. You're not a beneficiary. My father is and after him Abby."

"Aww, Gibbs, that is so _sweet_. I had no idea."

"Don't be in any hurry."

"Oh, I'm not!"

He turns to DiNozzo. "But you'd better be."

"What would you pay for premiums?"

"_WHY_?"

"Would you pay this much?" he hands Gibbs a post-it square.

"Never."

Abby peeks past his shoulder. "A _month_?"

"Langley, between the Corps and a slew of companies scattered all over the country, has the loving missus insured for twelve point eight _million _pesetas. In the past year and a half he's spent more on premiums than I have on dates."

"That's saying a lot," Abby admits. "I happen to know what you'll shell out when you're hoping for–"

"The point is, he's staking a lot on a huge payoff."

"You thinking what I'm thinking?" Abby asks Gibbs.

"I'm thinking when it comes to Collateral Damage, we've been looking at the wrong woman."


	17. Stick A Fork In

Chapter Seventeen  
Stick A Fork In

"You think Langley shot his wife _through _Huston for the insurance?" Abby demands of DiNozzo. Her lab suddenly feels a bit alien. Of all the discoveries she's made here "That's–"

"Incredible?"

"_Sick_! Not 'hinky sick', this is sick sick."

"It's a sick world out there," DiNozzo counsels.

"But how do you prove he did it?"

"I know how." Gibbs pulls out his cell phone. The connection takes just a moment. "McGee, you get the address of that Security Officer, the one who gave Sky the rifle? Good, I want to put up a photo lineup." He closes the phone, turns to Abby. "I want you to pull up a couple of pictures."

As soon as he closes the phone it chimes again. When he sees who's calling, he activates the speaker. "Yeah, Gibbs."

/Jethro,/ Ducky's voice comes through, /are you nearby?/

"Abby's lab."

/I need you here right away. Bring Abby if you please, this concerns her as well./

Gibbs closes the phone, cocks a finger to the woman and leads her and DiNozzo out.

xx

"It was something Mr. Palmer said when he came in yesterday morning to reopen the case," Ducky says as he, Jimmy Palmer, Gibbs, DiNozzo and Sciuto gather about the body of Staff Sergeant Wendy Langley. She is still sewn, the incisions from her shoulders to breastbone, then down to her groin neatly sutured; therefore the Investigators conclude that whatever their loquacious colleague had discovered was not internal.

"Ducky, your point." Gibbs is anxious to get on the road as soon as McGee calls with the location of the Hampton Arms' Security Officer.

"Well, to put it succinctly, our unfortunate guest," Ducky waves his hand over the nude woman, "did not die of her gunshot wound."

Gibbs' patience is waning. They'd already determined that the many cuts inflicted by the shattered glass of the shower door were superficial. "Then what killed her?"

"It was Mr. Palmer's mention of how Karen Huston suffocated on the blood which filled her lung that inspired me to take another look at Staff Sergeant Langley. Though you'll find there are no marks on her throat, I did find petechial hemorrhaging in the conjunctive tissue of her eyes and atelectasis in her lungs. If I may..." he raises his hand to Gibbs, his fingers near the taller man's throat.

"Now most people are of the mistaken belief that it takes considerable effort to strangle a person, when in reality it does not. It takes very little, in fact, assuming you know how. If the person is unconscious or otherwise incapacitated, suffocating him is easy and leaves no marks on mouth or nose."

With the tips of two fingers, Ducky applies gentle pressure to either side of Gibbs' trachea. Gibbs' breath is cut off. He doesn't pull away, but strain as he does, he can neither draw air in nor force it out. After ten seconds of this very effective demonstration Ducky withdraws his fingers and Gibbs can breathe again.

"That's almost exactly what that hinky bastard Burke did to Dawn!" Abby exclaims. Her lifelong friend Dawn Caldwell had been one of several women attacked in the hills of New Jersey this past July. It had led to Abby's first 'field investigation' and uncounted arguments with Gibbs over jurisdiction.

"I thought you would recognize it, my dear. If you can perform some additional tests of Sergeant Langley's tissue samples, with particular attention to markedly elevated levels of carbaminohemoglobin–"

"Consider it done."

"How soon?" Gibbs asks.

"An hour."

"Too long. I'm satisfied you'll find them. We'll go ahead. When you have the answer, call me." He turns to Ducky. "But why couldn't she stop it from happening?"

"Both of her lungs had been penetrated, remember. She might have been delirious, already dying, suffering from asphyxia, drowning in her own blood. Indications are she was alive for several moments. She would have been unable to offer any resistance whatsoever.

"Naturally," Ducky continues the lecture to his captive audience, "any resistance on the subject's part will dislodge the contact, which is why this method is not often used. However," he points to Langley's throat, "we found constriction of her windpipe ... here. It did not show on the surface because very little pressure had to be used. As you know, though flesh is somewhat elastic and even after death the flesh _may _return to an ante-mortem state, in this case since there was neither blood flow nor respiration, the tissues were not forced back again.

"I believe John Langley came upon his wife lying upon their bathroom floor, but she was not dead. She clung to life. He cradled her in his arms as he'd said, but it was to mask the spatter of Karen Huston's blood upon his clothes."

Gibbs' glance at Abby is enough. They have Langley's shirt. If Huston's blood is under the wash of Wendy Langley's blood, she'll find it.

"Sergeant Langley no doubt believed her husband would save her. Instead he used that diabolical method to cut off her air."

Ducky's voice, already grim, grows deadly. "And the very last moments of this poor woman's life were spent staring up into the face of her loving husband as he murdered her."

xxx

Gibbs, DiNozzo and McGee meet with Michael Roberts in his apartment. The Security Officer from the Hampton Arms is on his second day off and the four men sit at his kitchen table. The agents want no distractions, nor input from other officers, which is why the conversation is being conducted here.

"Do you remember giving a package to one of your tenants on Tuesday the 13th?" Gibbs asks.

"Maybe," the young man answers cautiously.

"You're not in any trouble, son," Gibbs assures him. "We're interested in who picked up the package."

"On the 13th? I wouldn't remember that." Roberts' furtive glances from one agent to the other telegraph his anxiety. "I don't even know everyone there; I'm only there about two months. Maybe you should talk to my supervisor."

"Humor us," DiNozzo advises, playing it low key. "I think you'd remember one of these." He places a sheet containing two rows of three color photos of faces upon the table before the young man. All are blonde women, average age 25, and he has no doubt they'd be remembered. "Take your time, don't rush it. Just look them over carefully, tell us which one picked up the long package."

Roberts stares for a long time at the women. One is Sky - her official NCIS ID photo. One is Nicola Chapman, pulled off her interview tape. Another is of particular interest. The remaining three are NCIS Agents.

For a long moment Roberts' hand hovers over Sky's picture, lower left, but they can see he's uncertain. "These two here I see every day."

This is interesting, though not surprising. "Which ones?"

He points to lower left and upper middle. "These two."

"Which one picked up the package?"

After a long stare he decides. "It was her." He points to the top middle picture.

"You're sure," Gibbs presses. Roberts has chosen the one he'd ordered inserted. He wants there to be no doubt.

"Yes. I remember now, she was nervous, looking around a lot. I've never had anyone nervous picking up a package."

Gibbs puts a photo of the package room log down, points to Samantha Sky's signature. It was written a little after four, when Sammy had said she was at the Eighteenth Street Lounge. "She signed it?"

"I don't know," Roberts admits. "I ... really didn't ... wasn't ... I wasn't looking at the signature." He's certain he's been caught in a violation, a lapse of attentiveness. Gibbs isn't concerned. Looking at the picture of his target, he's sure he knows where the young man's attention had been.

"Thank you, you've been very helpful."

On the steps outside, he turns to his team. "Invite her in for a chat."

"With pleasure," McGee declares.

xxx

DiNozzo and McGee watch Colette Zang, seated in the locked room, through the one-way mirror. The agents had said almost nothing to the nervous woman from the moment they'd entered Singh Tsong Sporting. They'd placed handcuffs upon the startled woman, gave a perfunctory recitation of her Rights as though reading the back of a cereal box and brought her to their car in full view of the store owners, customers and passers-by on the street.

They'd answered none of her increasingly frantic questions during the drive to DC and into the Navy Yard, nor when they locked her in the Interrogation room. McGee, maddeningly, had responded to none of her appeals. The only response he feels like giving, if he could, would be to channel Ziva David.

It's three in the afternoon and Zang's been sitting in the silent room for over an hour. DiNozzo and McGee watch her grow increasingly nervous. It's been a satisfying hour.

Gibbs steps into the dark Observation chamber behind them, file folder in his hand. He says nothing, merely examines Zang for a long moment, decides she's cooked enough and leaves to apply the fork.

x

Gibbs unlocks the door silently. When he throws it open Zang jumps up with a scream. "Sit down," he tells her, his voice dead.

"What's going on? Where am I?"

He refuses to credit that she doesn't know she's in the Washington Navy Yard. Instead, he gives her a look that blatantly denies her intelligence. "Headquarters, Naval Criminal Investigative Service."

"I'm not in the Navy!"

"Something for which Americans everywhere are grateful."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means, Miss Zang, that if you keep acting like an idiot I'll have to treat you as one." He lets her glare long enough for her to realize that it'll do her no good. He hasn't used this particular opening play in some years but considers it quite satisfying after the tension of the past several days. He spreads on the table before her a copy of the purchase record for the Winchester .308. "You falsified records to make it appear Samantha Sky bought this rifle. You filled out the registration, shipped the rifle and then went to the Hampton Arms to collect it. I talked to your boss, you left work early on the thirteenth. You should've gone home."

It's gratifying to watch the veneer of confident innocence fall from her face. She can't look at him. "You're wrong. I didn't do that."

'Here's where the fun begins.' "We have a witness. We have you on security camera from the building lobby signing for and receiving the rifle."

"You're a _liar_! There's no camera in the lob–!"

x

He lets her have long enough to appreciate what she's done, then smiles ruthlessly. "You want to take it from the top now?"

"I want a lawyer."

"Oh, you need one." Legally the conversation should end now, but Gibbs isn't going to ask any questions. "He's going to have his work cut out for him. Filing false Federal documents. Conspiracy to commit murder. Double murder. Lying to Federal Officers in–"

"Wait a minute _I didn't murder anyone_!"

"You murdered a young woman by the name of Karen Huston, but the weapon you used was so powerful it hit and killed someone in the next apartment, which is why you're being charged for two murders."

"_I didn't do anything_!"

Gibbs has heard these four words too many times in these past days. The difference is that this time he knows the truth. "Your gun, you picked it up and you used it. The thing we don't know is why you hated Huston so much that you shot her."

"I didn't shoot her! I don't even _know _her!"

"You know Sky, well enough to impersonate her." He recalls Abby's examination, how she'd rarely encountered a weapon as devoid of prints as this one had been. "Sky was arguing with Huston but you killed Huston. We found the rifle where you tossed it in the dumpster. Your fingerprints were all over it."

"I packed it!" she cries even more stridently, self-control evaporating. He only need turn the heat up just a little higher.

"Then you used it."

"NO! I didn't!"

He takes out another paper, hands it to her. "This is a warrant to search your home. We're executing it right now. I have two agents searching for evidence that you practiced Samantha Sky's signature. They'll find it too, even on pressure impressions on a pad. They'll also find plenty of evidence linking you to Sky, Huston and the Hampton Arms. Motive would be nice too, but we've built airtight cases without it." He gathers his papers, stands up.

"_Wait_!"

"You want to tell me why you killed Huston?"

"I _didn't _do it! John, he did it! It was John."

"John who?"

"Langley! John Langley!"

He glares at her, the accusation 'lying idiot' in every nuance. "He lost his _wife _when you shot Huston. Why would he hurt her?"

"For the money!"

"What money?"

"The Insurance Money, you _goddamn _IDIOT!"

He waves the excuse off. "He's not getting that."

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN NOT GETTING THAT? WE'RE SPLITTING ALMOST THIRTEEN MILLION DOLLARS, YOU FUCKING IMBICILE!"

"You're not splitting anything. You're going to Federal prison for two murders."

"Federal..."

"Wendy Langley was a Marine."

"_NO_! This was his fucking idea! I didn't have anything to do with it!"

"Tell me about it."

It's a story of greed, corruption, opportunity, deception and romance about to go bad. To Gibbs, it's his favorite sort of novel, the kind where he writes the end.

xxx

Gibbs, flanked by DiNozzo and McGee, knocks on the door of apartment 9F. He's in no kind mood. The last time he'd felt like this was when he'd been maneuvered into helping Captain Michael Watson to steal two million dollars. The man had set up his own wife and blind daughter, a family who'd trusted him and had looked to him for protection and support, and he'd betrayed them in the then-most-henious way Gibbs had ever known. They'd nearly been murdered, while Watson had cared more for the money. Gibbs had been so offended he'd nearly crossed his own line in taking that bastard down.

This time it's worse. Wendy Langley is dead.

He's about to conclude this case and put a true scumbag where he so richly belongs. What makes this case so personally offensive to Gibbs is that while Sammy Sky had known she was sleeping with an enemy, Staff Sergeant Wendy Langley had not.

x

"Yes?" John Langley asks as he opens the door.

"Mister Langley, may we come in?" Gibbs is willing to do it in the hallway, but would prefer to be inside. He, DiNozzo and McGee will have tactical control if they can spread out within the apartment.

When the three agents casually take positions in the living room surrounding the doomed man, Gibbs explains. "We're ready to make an arrest in your wife's murder. We have a few more questions."

"Sure, anything you want. Would you like to sit down?"

"Thanks, we'll stand." This will make Langley feel more uncomfortable, but he'll feel more so as Gibbs tightens the noose. "The walls in this building are really thin. Have you been disturbed by fights in another apartment?"

"Fights? I don't under–"

McGee pushes a button on his radio.

"_I've had it up to here with you, you Mossad moron_!" Michelle Palmer's yell cuts through the bathroom and kitchen walls.

"If _you _were in the Mossad you would be dead by now!" Ziva's yell come through as clearly.

"Is that a threat, _bitch_?" At a look from Gibbs, McGee sends another signal and the argument ceases.

x

Gibbs is pleased by the trapped look in Langley's eyes. "You knew about the fights Sky and Huston were having. Those, and your girlfriend Zang's job at the Sporting Goods store, made everything fall into place so nicely."

"I don't kn–"

"You shot Karen Huston when she opened her door, but it wasn't a fatal shot. At point blank range, with a rifle, it was practically a miss. You weren't aiming at her, she was just in the way. You were aiming at the bathroom wall, right where your wife was standing."

"That's redic–!"

"_Zang gave you up_." He's in no mood to listen to more of Langley's lies. "The insurance, the forgery, being here to collect and to give you the gun before your wife came back, everything." Langley looks sick, Gibbs intends for him to get worse.

"Of course, once the insurance companies got word from us of how many policies were out, and the circumstances of your wife's death, they started their own investigations. With the beneficiary the chief suspect, they're not going to pay until the–"

He's disappointed. Langley tries to draw a concealed glock on three surrounding agents. Gibbs' draw is faster; his bullet goes through Langley's thigh before the glock can clear its holster.


	18. That's What Friends Are For

Chapter 18  
That's what friends are for.

"I can't believe it's over," Sammy Sky, seated at the small round table, declares that evening at the Eighteenth Street Lounge. The Saturday dinnertime crowd fills the room, spontaneous music occasionally emerges from various quarters, rises and shortly falls off to rise, different, elsewhere. Savory aromas from the kitchen wash the jailhouse from Sammy's lungs.

She smiles at Abby Sciuto and Michelle Palmer, who sit with her practically knee to knee at the round table, and admits: "Actually, it's not over over, but it's over."

"Well said, Yogi," Michelle says, raising her glass of wine in salute.

"It does sound like something Berra would say, doesn't it?"

Now that the nightmare is behind her, the real Sammy Sky is back, unrestrained and ebullient. She's celebrating with her good friends, her supporters throughout this trial, her spirits are high and everyone around her knows the old Sammy Sky is back to stay. Though the aftereffects of the tragedy will resonate for a long time to come, this evening is a time to push away sadness and enjoy life.

And Abby and Michelle know that if there's anyone who can throw herself into joie de vivre, it's their friend.

"What're you going to do now?" Abby asks. She doesn't want to dampen the mood, but she can't forget how much lies unresolved.

"Now?" Sammy shudders, unwilling to let go of the joy even in this reminder. But the press is so heavy that the smile drops from her face. "I'm having Karen's body sent for by her family. They can do the shipping. Believe it or not, I don't want anything to do with her."

"What Langley did was totally sick," Michelle declares sharply, taking a hard gulp from her wine glass. "Hooking up with Zang was bad enough, his wife was risking everything and he's dipping into Zang's well, but to do this just because he wants a younger woman - that's _sick_. And to think I felt sorry for him."

"We all did," Abby admits.

"Not me," Sammy declares, joy gone - temporarily. "I mean I did when I thought they were some madman's innocent victims, but he dragged me into his plot just when my life was going to hell. He should _rot_."

"If Gibbs and Carpenter have their ways, both Langley and Zang'll rot," Abby predicts with grim satisfaction.

"Good riddance."

x

"_So_." Michelle wants off this subject. "What direction is your life going now?"

"Still upside down," she sighs. "I'm just going to try to take it day by day. I still have that hearing at GW to face - and without Karen to question I don't know _which _way it'll go. I also have to find a place to live."

"Live?" Abby asks. This is unexpected.

Sammy takes a drink of her wine, thumps the glass down. It's not making her feel any better. "I can't stay there, not where Karen was murdered. Not where all those memories are."

"What about Omaha?" Michelle asks.

'Omaha,' she thinks. 'Will I ever go back? Maybe some day, but,' "Not 'till I graduate, maybe not even then. People may compare me to Glinda - I don't know why, I'm much prettier." All this gets her is a pair of smirks. "But Omaha is definitely Dorothy Gale territory. I don't think I could go back to that."

"Kansas," Abby points out.

"Who cares?" Michelle settles the issue, getting a 'thank you' nod from Sammy.

"But I'm getting out of Hampton," Sammy explains, pushing the glass into the middle of the table. "I figure I'll get out before they start trying to force me out; murder isn't good for Real Estate. One more hassle I don't need. Besides, it's eighteen hundred, I can't manage that alone and there's no _way _I'm going the roommate route ever again.

"Pity," Abby says casually, "I was going to suggest, if you need a place to stay until you got back on your feet, that you come live with me."

"_Really_?" She perks up instantly, pale blue eyes gleaming. She nearly comes out of her seat, utterly delighted. Then again, with Sammy Sky, degrees of delight, especially extreme highs, are hard to distinguish.

"Really." Abby takes a drink of her own wine, sets it down, hiding her feelings behind a serious and dismissive mask. "But then, if you're determined not to go the roommate route..."

"You're not a typical roommate - you're a Goth." She gives her friend a sly smile. "Then again, maybe I can wean you off that."

Abby laughs, accepting the challenge. Dawn Caldwell and Sky have already tried weaning her off rock music and Abby's working to broaden the petite woman's horizons to MegaDeth and Brain Fecal Matter. That friendly battle is still being fought, only now it'll be in close quarters. "It'll be fun to see you try."

"You still got that coffin in your bedroom?"

"You know it, Chicky."

"Then where would I sleep? I don't need much room."

"I have an urn."

Sammy grins at Michelle. "I walked right into that one, didn't I?"

"Yes, you did," the agent agrees with a smirk.

"Then I guess it's a done deal. Thank you!" She jumps to her feet, Abby meets her to seal the deal.

'When two huggers get together,' Michelle reflects silently, 'this could last all night.'

x

It doesn't last nearly that long before the women are again seated.

Abby won't admit she's more surprised than her friends are at this spur-of-the-moment deal. But the last time she'd had company for any time - other than Tim McGee - had been Dawn Caldwell, and she hopes this'll be as much fun. It'll certainly be a barrel of laughs - or monkeys. She looks forward to finding out which.

'Of course, it'll mean getting used to a whole different musical experience - again.' Dawn's favorite was Classical. With Sammy ... she looks forward to finding out.

"I can put most of my stuff into storage until I find something," Sammy says. "Meantime," she raises her glass, "to good friends."

When they set their glasses down, Sammy picks up a long contoured case from by her feet, puts it on the table. "I'm feeling kind of inspired." She opens the violin case, draws out the instrument and a long bow.

"_Now_?" Michelle asks, glancing about.

"It's that kind of place, that's one reason I love it." Sammy stands up again, tucks the instrument under her chin, rests the bow on the strings and draws it along them. The spritely notes that attract attention throughout the room are instantly familiar. After the first bars the two seated women start the chorus.

"Keep smiling, keep shining, knowing you can always count on me, for sure. That's what friends are for ..."

xxx

Sunday morning, the huge gothic structure on New York Avenue known as Saint Mary the Virgin Church. Formerly a Roman Cathedral, it's less often given to grand spectacle but it's not without its moments.

Tim McGee sits in a pew midway back along the long central aisle. He's not a member of this church - yet, he grants - though he's attended regularly for several months. Regardless of who's Officiating, he always takes particular interest in one person. This morning she's just returned to the sedilia, the triple seat at the right wall of the Sanctuary. The exchange of Peace is concluded - for most a handshake, for him and that woman a hug and discreet kiss.

Reverend George Donaldson, Celebrant of this Mass, doesn't return to his center seat but, before the Eucharistic Minister would prepare the Altar, he pauses between the front pews. He glances back to his left and then, through the small microphone attached to the collar of his green and gold chasuble, his amplified voice fills the cavernous chamber.

"I publish the Banns of Marriage between the Reverend Siobhan Marie O'Mallory and Mister Timothy McGee. If anyone can show just cause why they may not legally be married in accordance with God's law, you are bidden to declare it. This is the First Time of Asking."

**End****of****Season****Two**.

Next Episode: Movie Night: A 'Girl's Night Out' goes horribly awry, embroiling Abby, Jennifer and Michelle in a web of deception and murder.


End file.
